Not Exactly BFF's
by Ramos
Summary: Vic Moretti and Cady Longmire have had just about enough of the macho BS. What happens when two strong women decide to take charge of Henry's case? Takes place after Episode 3.8, ignores 3.9. No Femslash, maybe a little shippy Walt & Vic.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: NOT EXACTLY BFF's**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13 for language (c'mon, it's Vic!)**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Not Femslash. Starts the day after 'Harvest,' but ignores the rest of the season. **

~Chapter 1~

Victoria Moretti had just cleared her last email and filed her last statement in the case of George Linder's death, and it was only eight-thirty in the morning. She didn't know why Walt had declared it a cold case after only three days, but then again, she wasn't sure she understood any of his motivations lately. The man had been giving her mixed signals for weeks now and it was seriously starting to piss her off. So, okay, maybe she herself wasn't a poster child for having her head screwed on straight, but it would help if he wouldn't save her life one day, hold her as she sobbed her heart out on his uninjured shoulder the next, and then turn around and act as though Vic quitting her job was just another minor administrative detail.

The outer door opened, and Ruby's standard greeting was especially cheerful. "Good morning! Nice to see you, Cady! What brings you by?"

Glancing up, Vic saw Cady Longmire walking in, her smile bright but fleeting.

"Morning, Ruby. Is my dad in?"

"No, not yet. He had a call down south county a ways. He ought to be here in an hour or so."

"Hi, Vic," Cady called, walking in through the small divider that separated Ruby's domain from the deputies'.

"Hey," she replied, actually glad to see Cady. After picking her up at the train station the day before, they'd had a really good conversation over a really difficult subject, and maybe even found some common ground. It left her feeling uncharacteristically friendly towards the younger woman with whom she'd never really connected before.

"I guess Branch isn't back yet, either," Cady surmised, looking at Branch's empty desk.

"Nope," Vic answered with a pop on the end. "Apparently we women are holding down the fort while the men-folk run around saving the day."

"Dammit," Cady muttered, flopping her jacket and a leather briefcase on Branch's desk. "I really need to talk to my dad." When Vic gave her an inquisitive eyebrow, Cady huffed. "Henry's trial is in a few weeks. We've already agreed to the extradition to Colorado, so I need to get his defense case firmed up, and right now all I've got is a big fat load of nothing."

"And you need your dad for that?"

"I was hoping to talk to him more about this Miller Beck guy, but every time I try Dad changes the subject or has to go somewhere."

"Yeah, I can see that," Vic mused. "Your dad's not big on talking."

"So you've noticed? And Henry's almost as bad," she complained, beginning to pace back and forth. "Between the two of them, you'd think I was ten years old and asking them about where babies come from."

Vic put her chin into her left hand, resting the elbow on her desk, and watched Cady.

"God forbid that they actually tell me what the hell is going on," she ranted as she crossed the five steps the small space allowed, then turned again. "I'm just trying to keep Henry from going to prison for the rest of his life. But no, they keep their secrets and give each other significant looks that tell me there's a whole hell of a lot more going on here, but neither one will talk." She stopped and regarded Vic. "I don't suppose you know how to waterboard someone, do you?"

"Uh, no," Vic admitted. "I learned some interesting things on the force in Philly, but my taste for torture has kinda gone down lately."

"Yeah, sorry," Cady said with a grimace. "How are you doing?"

"Better," Vic admitted. "My ribs are healing, and the bruises are fading." She held out her right wrist, where the abrasions were scabbing up and the bright red and purple marks were going green and yellow. "I still have headaches now and then, but they're usually caused by that one, and that one," she said, pointing first to Branch's desk and then Walt's office.

"How's Sean?" Cady asked, and then winced at the face Vic made. "Sorry I asked."

"Don't be; it's not your fault. Though if he could find a way to blame you, I'm sure he would."

Heaving a sigh, Cady pulled out Branch's chair and settled into it, prepared to wait.

"Have you tried calling Branch?" Vic asked as Cady began toying with the things on Branch's desk.

"Just once. Went to voicemail."

"So he still has your car, somewhere in Denver, and on this hunt for David Ridges," Vic summed up.

"Yeah. He was supposed to be helping me find some information on Darius Burns because I can't afford a private investigator. But then he flipped out thinking he's seen Ridges and I just gave up. I was hoping to talk to Henry, but when I called him last night, he told me not to worry about it because he had another lead."

"Did he tell you what it was?"

"No," she growled.

"Hmmm," Vic mused.

"What?"

The corner of her mouth twisted as she regarded Cady. "Are you asking my opinion, or are you just here to vent? Because, believe me, if you're here to bitch about men – especially the ones around here – I really could listen to you all day long. But if you're asking me what I think..." she trailed off.

Cady leaned forward. "My dad said you used to work Homicide in Philadelphia. So, yeah, I want your opinion."

"Okay. I think you need to go back to the beginning. I've only heard pieces, and I know Walt was involved, but I don't know the whole story and I can only guess at what he hasn't told me."

"It all started with my mother's murder," Cady stated baldly.

"Miller Beck is the guy who killed her, right?"

Red hair swayed as Cady nodded.

"How do you know?"

"My dad and Henry both said it, so I'm guessing they found out."

Vic wrinkled her nose. "Guessing gets really messy in a murder trial."

"How many murder trials have you been to?"

"More than a few."

"That's more than I have," Cady admitted. "And I've never done a murder investigation." She regarded the woman across from her. Vic was older than her by a few years, but probably a decade older in experience. "Can you help me?"

"Probably. Probably a lot. But you know Walt's gonna get pissed if I start poking around."

"Does that really matter to you?"

"Hell, no," Vic replied.

"I can't pay you," Cady added. "Henry's defense fund is running on fumes right now."

This time Vic sat forward, fiddling with the pen on her desk. "You're a lawyer, right?"

"Well, yeah, but mostly family law."

"Good. That's actually what I want. I'll take some personal time – Walt already told me to take a break if I felt like I needed it."

"Look, if you're not up to this," Cady began, afraid she was pushing Vic.

"Screw that – what I need is some solid work. And I really need to kick somebody's ass."

With sharp, determined gestures Vic walked to the storage shelf near Ruby and grabbed a fresh steno pad. The half-size notebook landed on her desk as Vic pulled her chair up with a clatter.

"Okay. Let's start with what you know about the case."

For nearly an hour, Cady talked while Vic took notes, rapidly flipping back and forth as she asked questions that made Cady reconsider every assumption she'd made so far.

"So, Martha Longmire goes to Denver for chemotherapy in May. She left the hospital after her treatment, around eight in the morning. She stopped at a café for tea on her way back to the hotel where her husband is waiting for her. A man comes out of the alley and mugs her, steals her purse and assaults her with a knife in the process. The injuries are not immediately fatal, there's time for her to be transported back to the hospital, which we already know is within easy walking distance for a woman who's not feeling a hundred percent. Her husband is able to join her and spend a few hours… saying goodbye."

Not sure if she was offended or grateful for Vic's professional, dispassionate summary, Cady nodded at each point, but was oddly comforted by the last minute hesitation. She knew Vic was fond of her boss, and showed some sensitivity towards the man they both admired, even when they were annoyed with him.

"So, the witness at the café gave a statement. Did you get a copy of the entire case file on your mother's murder investigation?"

"No. Fales showed me Beck's case file, but I didn't get a copy of my Mom's. Should I have?"

"Technically, her case has a direct correlation to Henry's motive, so yeah. Okay, here's another question I have. How did Fales connect Henry or your dad to Miller Beck's murder?"

"Um, there was a knife, found on Beck's body. It had my mother's DNA on it."

"You're shitting me," Vic declared.

"No…" Cady shook her head, puzzled. "Why do you…"

"Months later, this guy still has the same knife with her DNA on it? That's bullshit."

"It was a nice knife," Cady protested. "Maybe he couldn't replace it."

"No," Vic shook her head vehemently. "That's total bullshit. Where was Beck's body?"

Rifling through her briefcase, Cady found the file. "Buried in a shallow grave under an overpass. His neck was broken."

"Right. Like Henry would be stupid enough to dispose of a body that way. If Henry had wanted him dead, he'd have taken Beck for a ride on the Rez or down some canyon somewhere and he'd be buzzard bait."

"Hector might have killed him," Cady confessed. "Henry and my dad mentioned that. But then my Dad came up with that list of other suspects, so I'm not sure who else might have killed Beck."

"Okay. Let's go talk to Henry," Vic replied, standing up and tucking her notebook into her jacket. "I'll ask the questions this time. Ruby, I'm taking the rest of the day off. If something comes up, call Walt, then Ferg, then Branch before you call me," she ordered as she stalked out the door.

"Can't wait to see this," Cady murmured, thrusting papers back in her briefcase as she hurried to catch up with Vic.

Ruby looked up as Cady waved, following in Vic's wake.

"Good luck," Ruby called. "Good luck to Henry," she amended in an undertone as she went back to work.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title: NOT EXACTLY BFF's**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13 for language (c'mon, it's Vic!)**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Not Femslash. Starts the day after 'Harvest,' but ignores the rest of the season. **

~Chapter 2~

The gravel crunched under the Dodge's heavy tires as Vic steered the truck off the road and into the lot around the Red Pony Bar and Grill. Considering there was only one other vehicle in the lot it wasn't hard to find a good place to park, and she pulled right up next to Henry's vintage truck. Cady wasted no time hopping out, with Vic right behind her.

"Henry," Cady called, banging on the door with vigor. "Open up!"

Henry Standing Bear's handsome bronze features appeared in the glass window, quickly followed by the door unlocking.

"What can I do for two such lovely ladies at this hour?" Henry asked, a charming grin creasing his face.

"You can save the sweet talk," Cady told her godfather as she brushed past him. "I'm here as your lawyer."

"I see," he answered, shutting the door behind the blonde deputy. "And why is Vic here?"

"I'm the bullshit detector," she answered. "And you're here as the guy who doesn't want to go to prison, so let's talk, okay?"

Henry blinked, then assumed a patient expression. "There is no need for you to be involved in this, Vic. Walt and I will handle it."

"Yeah? You're doing a bang up job so far."

Abandoning tact, he went with bluntness. "I do not want your help."

Vic gave him a smile that would have better suited a crocodile. "You can shove what you want up your ass, Henry. I'm here as a favor to Cady. Not you, not Walt. As far as I'm concerned, the two of you are about this far away from being hostile witnesses. Do you want me to treat you that way?"

"It feels as though you already are."

"I haven't even started yet," she warned him. "Sit down."

Heaving a deep breath through his nose, Henry walked deliberately behind his bar and turned to face them, placing both hands flat on the surface. "What do you want to know?"

"Tell us exactly what happened in Denver," Cady told him.

He glanced at Vic, who had pulled her steno pad from her jacket. His attention, however, was on Cady, and he began to speak in measured, even words.

"Your father and I have been trying to figure out what really happened…"

"No," Vic interrupted. "Start with 'Walt called you and told you Martha was dead.' Then keep going."

His mouth twisted, but he obeyed.

"Your father called the day your mother died. He told me she had passed after her last chemo treatment. I have known your father for nearly our entire lives, and I knew something was terribly wrong, even beyond the obvious. I drove down to Denver immediately, and found him still at the hospital, talking to police. They were taking a statement.

"He was in shock, I think. We had been prepared for the worst when the cancer came back, but then the chemo seemed to be working. We were hopeful, at that point, and thought everything was going to be fine."

"She was almost done with that round," Cady supplied. "All the tests were coming back good. When Dad told me she had died, it was worse than if she hadn't gotten better at all."

Henry nodded in agreement. "Your mother's last wish was that you not be told she was murdered. She wanted to protect you from this terrible knowledge."

"I know that; I even understand. I just don't agree," Cady told him. "Then what happened?"

"The police insisted that your father not involve himself in the investigation. We came home, started making some arrangements. He spent the next few weeks calling Denver nearly every day, asking for progress. Of which there was very little. They had a single witness, the waitress at the café where your mother had tea just before the attack. She described the assailant, but did not get much detail."

"Did the police get a sketch artist in?" Vic asked.

"Yes, but they had little success with it. And after a month of nothing, they were preparing to declare it an unsolved homicide and forgetting about it."

"So you and Dad decided to go hunting yourselves," Cady guessed.

Henry swallowed, but did not deny it. "We did. Walt had a copy of the police sketch. We drove to Denver and got a couple of rooms at a cheap motel – I had planned to check on an elder of my tribe who lives in Denver anyway. We took the police sketch, and canvased the area near the café. We checked at some of the rougher bars in town. Everything the police should have done. And though it took a while, we found a lead."

"Is this lead the same guy that's now the prosecution's star witness?" Vic asked.

"Yes. Jonas Gaitherson," Cady confirmed.

"Ri-i-ight. So, what did this Jonas guy tell you?"

"He said that he knew this man – this Miller Beck. That he made a living, if you could call it that, by petty theft and minor drug dealing. Apparently he had bragged quite a bit to his friends about the big score he had made off a woman carrying a purse that looked like a burgundy leather saddle."

Vic raised an eyebrow at that, and Cady blushed. "I picked it out when I was nine, but Mom loved it. She carried it off and on for years."

"It was adorable," Henry assured her. "But memorable."

"Okay, so this Jonas tells you who you're looking for and where to find him," Vic urged. "Then what?"

"That night, we tracked Beck to his crib, I believe it is called, and found him and his friends partying. We waited until dawn, when we were sure that they all had passed out, then spent some time looking around. We found the purse in his garbage can."

"Okay, I call bullshit on that one," Vic interrupted. "Out here in the boonies you all can stockpile your trash until hell freezes over or it spontaneously combusts or whatever, but most cities have this thing called trash service, where a big truck comes by and takes your trash away."

Cady rolled her eyes at Vic's sarcasm, but she had to agree. "It does sound strange."

"And the fact that you _conveniently_ found the purse at the house of a guy that this witness _conveniently_ pointed you towards? It sounds way too easy."

"It was not easy," Henry protested. "It was hidden in a steel barrel in the back yard."

"What condition was it in?"

"What?" Henry seemed surprised at the question.

"What condition?" Vic pressed. "Was it all beat up? Did it have blood on it? It's leather, right? Sitting outside in a rusty oil drum for more than a month? Even in May they can get snow in Denver, and it sure as hell rains at least once in a while."

"It was weathered," Henry answered, considering. "But you are right. After a month, it should have been much more distressed than it was."

"Okay, so setting that aside, what kind of idiot purse snatcher brings the purse home with him? I've taken a lot of mugging statements, and I'm telling you the thief grabs the purse, grabs the cash and maybe the cards, and then dumps it. They don't take it home as a trophy, especially if they killed someone getting it."

"What are you saying?"

Vic gave him a long look. "I think you got played."

"No. Absolutely not," Henry denied, but didn't sound as if he quite believed it himself.

"Someone knew you were looking for Martha's murderer. Whether or not Beck actually did the killing, no thief would have been stupid enough to keep a purse that recognizable. He might have shown it to some friends as a trophy, or if he was making fun of it, but it would have been thrown off a bridge or down a sewer drain before the day was over.

"And that knife found with Beck's body," Vic continued, turning to Cady. "If Beck knew he'd hurt your mom, whether he meant to or not, he would have cleaned it up or tossed it. Even the stupid ones know how to use bleach these days.

"So tell me what happened next," she ordered, returning her attention to a somewhat shaken Henry Standing Bear.

"Walt assured me he would take the information to the police after getting some sleep. I had promised to go see Ada Black Kettle in the afternoon, so I grabbed some rack time myself. Walt was gone from his room when I came back to the motel."

"And you believed him?" Vic asked, skeptically.

"It was not my place to tell Walt to do anything that night," Henry declared, his voice solemn and sincere. "It was his path to take."

Cady bit her lip before asking. "And did he take it?"

"He tried," Henry admitted. "He showed up back at the motel a few hours later, covered in blood – his own. Righteous anger may give the strength of many, but it was not enough."

"Not against a house full of cranked up meth-heads," Vic mused. "So, Walt tried to go Dirty Harry on these guys and got his ass handed to him – the fact that he even got out alive is impressive. How bad was he hurt?"

"Beaten, bruised. But someone had attacked him from behind, and slashed his back with a long knife of some sort. It took Ada quite a while to sew the wounds closed."

"That must be where he got those scars on his back," Vic guessed.

The other two looked at her. "Since when have you seen my Dad without a shirt on?" Cady asked, the corner of her mouth lifted in a smile. Henry was also giving her a speculative look.

"When he was getting a bullet hole stitched up," Vic ground out, but the flush on her face was rising fast. Cady and Henry gave each other a look, but Vic soon barreled on.

"So, Walt is cut up, which puts an end to his wild night life in Denver. Did I miss anything?"

"The seven hundred dollars," Cady murmured.

"What seven hundred dollars?" Vic asked. She looked at Henry, who looked at Cady.

"What she said." He indicated Vic with a jerk of his thumb.

"Gaitherson's witness statement says that Miller Beck got seven hundred dollars out of my Mom's purse. Only Mom never carried more than fifty bucks in her purse, ever."

"Interesting," Vic muttered, scribbling again in her book. "Yeah, I can't imagine why she'd want any cash if she's in town for chemo – I doubt she was up for doing any shopping."

"Dad thinks someone paid Beck to kill Mom. We just don't know who."

"Okay, let's come back to that in a minute," Vic decided. "Where do we stand on the case against Henry?"

"Well, they have Jonas Gaitherson putting Henry in Denver around the time Beck died, and Beck's teeth in Henry's possession."

"You kept his teeth?" Vic asked, incredulous.

"You would not understand," Henry told her. "Hector brought them back to me."

"And you can't put Hector on the stand to say that he killed Beck, because he's dead."

"Hector did not kill Miller Beck," Henry corrected. "He said it was not his right to take Beck's life. I do not believe he would lie about something like this."

"Yeah, Hector was an… interesting guy. And I'm sorry he's dead. But if he wasn't, we could have had him testify as to how Henry got the teeth, and probably get the charges reduced to conspiracy to commit. But David Ridges killed Hector, supposedly, and Ridges is in the wind."

"Wait – David Ridges really is alive?" Cady asked.

Vic made a face. "It's possible. Hector identified him as the man who shot him, just before he died, which is another indication that this is a lot more complicated than just killing Martha to punish Walt." She heaved a frustrated sigh. "This all just keeps coming back to Martha. Why kill a woman who's already sick?"

"Because it would hurt Walt," Henry supplied. "Her death sent him into a dark place. It was nearly a year before he climbed out."

"He's still there, sometimes," Cady added. "I catch him staring at that piano, or the tea box in his kitchen. He loved her so much."

"That's what a marriage should be," Vic commented, then scratched absently at the scabs on her left eyebrow. "If someone wanted to stop Walt from doing something… He was probably already preoccupied by his wife's health. Maybe they did it to keep Walt off balance, but in my experience, if you want somebody stopped, you put a bullet in them. You don't play mind games.

"And if someone just hated Walt enough to want to hurt him, or punish him, they might have killed Martha to do it. But they still wouldn't have been playing these games."

"I can subpoena the Denver PD for my mother's case file," Cady volunteered. "Maybe that will turn up something. But what I really want to know, Henry," she said pointedly, "is what new lead you were talking about."

"Your father and I are handling this," he began.

"No – My father isn't the one on trial next month," she cut in. "You are. And I'm your lawyer. So spit it out."

Henry sighed in reluctant agreement. "This man I told you about - Darius Burns. He works for Malachi Strand. We think Malachi could be involved."

"How?" Vic asked.

"I have no idea. But he is Malachi's muscle, and he has ties in Denver. It is possible he had Burns hire Miller Beck."

"Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Did Walt run a background check on this guy?"

"I do not know. He has been preoccupied with one or another of his deputies going missing."

"Okay, fine," Cady interrupted before the two could escalate. "I think we have some work ahead of us. I'll subpoena my mother's case file from Denver. Vic, can you do the background check on Darius?"

"Sure, no problem," Vic told her. "I'm gonna check Branch's info on Ridges, and we also need everything we can get on this star witness of theirs. If we can prove he's in on this, or even that he's just a scumbag of some sort, we can discredit him on the stand."

"We should make Jonas Gaitherson pick Henry out of a photo lineup," Cady said suddenly.

"If he does, will that not hurt my case?"

Vic shrugged. "It won't make it that much worse, but if he can't, it will go a hell of a long way towards reasonable doubt. Did you actually talk to the Jonas guy in Denver?"

"No. Walt did most of the talking."

"Let me guess, you played the strong silent Indian while Walt did his good ol' boy impression?"

"It works better that way," Henry pointed out.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title: NOT EXACTLY BFF's**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13 for language (c'mon, it's Vic!)**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Starts the day after 'Harvest,' but ignores the rest of the season. **

~Chapter 3~

After leaving the Red Pony, Cady asked Vic to drop her off at the small house she'd bought after graduating from law school. She had turned the smaller bedroom into a law office, and eventually hoped to open a law firm under her own name. For now, it was the headquarters of the 'Free Henry' campaign.

Driving back to the center of town, Vic saw Ferg's old blue Firebird parked in front of the station, but Walt's Bronco was absent. Unsure if she was feeling relief or disappointment, Vic shrugged and took the stairs with something close to her usual energy. That lasted until about the last three steps, where her sore ribs made her slow down and take them one at a time.

Once inside, she greeted Ruby and Ferg before making straight for Branch's desk.

"I thought you were taking the day off," Ferg said, his voice puzzled.

"I'm not really here," Vic answered, pulling open the drawers randomly.

"Funny," Ferg responded in voice that didn't sound amused. "You sorta look like you're here."

From the front of the office, Ruby called out, "If we get a call, are you really here?"

"I'm not on the clock, but if something comes up, sure. Ferg, do you know where Mister Obsessive is keeping all his crap on David Ridges?"

His round face pursed in thought. "If it's not in his desk, it might be in the file cabinet."

Vic smiled thinly and stifled her first instinct, which was to snap 'Thanks for nothing.' Ferg hadn't actually done anything to earn her displeasure. Yet. She moved towards the file cabinet and began going through their active and recent case files. "Okay, I'll keep looking. In the meantime, would you happen to remember what cases Walt might have been working on two years ago? Anything big that might have broken about the time his wife died?"

He shook his head. "Nothing really comes to mind, but Ruby might know."

"Great. All right. One more thing – can you start a background check on a guy named Darius Burns? He's here in Wyoming, but we think he might be from Denver."

"Oh, yeah. Walt asked me about him yesterday. I haven't gotten much back yet."

Vic stared at him, and when he didn't make any moves to turn back towards his desk, she shifted her weight to one hip and turned up the volume on the stare.

Ferg took the hint. "Oh – okay. I'll just check on that, right now."

"Thanks," she said mechanically, and turned towards Ruby, who held up one hand.

"I know – everything from that time frame. To be honest, I don't remember much happening around that time, either. We can check the call logs, but most of those files are probably already in the basement."

"Yea," Vic said glumly. "Basement archives – my favorite place to go spelunking, right after dumpsters and highway overpass bridges."

"May I ask what you're looking for?" Ruby peered over her glasses with an inquisitive air that could make a grown man squirm, and had. Vic was made of sterner stuff, but Ruby has been with the department a long time, and considered all of them her surrogate children – even Walt.

"Everything on Henry's case literally begins with the death of Martha Longmire. I didn't join the department here until about six months after that, so I've got no idea what might have been going on."

"Is that what all those pictures on that wall are about?" Ruby asked, incredulous. "What makes you think Martha's death was because of anything going on here?"

"Too many coincidences," she replied. "Too many inconsistencies with the stories, the timelines. Cady and Henry think it, too."

"What does Walter think?"

"No idea," Vic said bluntly. "And I'd love to play 'Twenty Questions' with him, but he's not here. So it will have to wait until I can."

"That ought to interesting," Ruby observed. "You might need some rope and a twitch."

Rolling her chair back, Ruby plucked a binder from the shelf beside her desk. Its label was from two years ago, and the older woman opened it and shuffled through the pages with all the expertise of a Las Vegas blackjack dealer.

"Martha died in May," she stated, lifting her head to best apply the bottom section of her bifocals. Flipping backwards through time, she ran a finger over the call logs for the month of May. And then April. And then March. It didn't take terribly long to reach the front of the book.

"The only thing that jumps out at me is the Malachi Strand trial, back in late February," she stated. "Walt and Henry arrested him almost a year before that, but it dragged on forever. He was sentenced in March, if I recall. He was already serving his time when Martha was murdered."

"Okay," Vic said, heaving a sigh. "Looks like I'm heading downstairs. Do me a favor – if I don't surface before you leave for the day, send out a search party."

Seven hours later, Vic was back at Cady's house, knocking on the door. When the redhead answered, she stopped short at the sight of Vic holding a pizza box and a six-pack of beer. Sandwiched between the two was a stack of file folders and loose paper.

"You're not the hot date I ordered," Cady told her, but took the beer.

"I'm the best offer you're gonna get tonight, sweet cheeks," Vic replied. "Too bad neither one of us swings that way."

Cady laughed, and held the door open for Vic to enter. "Have you seen the statistics on men to women in Wyoming? There are _way_ too many cowboys to switch teams." Leading the way to the kitchen, she pulled two of the beers and put the rest in the refrigerator.

"Yeah, too bad most of them are dumber than their horses," Vic groused, but took the beer Cady handed her and opened the pizza. "Hope you like Italian sausage."

As they ate, Vic told related her exciting afternoon of reading through old case files in musty basement until her butt fell asleep on the cold concrete floor.

"I couldn't find anything that looked promising," Vic said, dropping a crust into the lid of the box and getting another slice. I even went back upstairs and went through Walt's wall of crazy, but it looks like he's done a pretty good job of identifying his top suspects."

"So, Dad said he was visiting each of these guys, right?" Cady asked.

"Yeah – the next time I take a road trip, I need to remember to check out who your dad's pissed off lately before I pick a route. Anyway, our number one person of interest right now is Darius Burns."

"Henry said that this Burns guy is working for Malachi Strand."

"Right. Ruby told me about him. He's the one who used to be chief of police on the Rez, at least before your dad arrested him for extortion, right?"

"He's a real piece of work," Cady supplied. "Henry says he's the one behind all the beatings he got in jail."

"Man, I thought Philly had some whack jobs on the force, but that guy's got some balls. Too bad he was in jail when your mom died."

Cady gnawed on the end of her pizza crust. "When did Darius start working for Strand? If he was visiting him in jail, maybe Strand was still giving orders from the inside." She grabbed one of the many legal pads scattered around her kitchen and began scribbling. "I can get Malachi's visitor logs at the Tri-County Jail if I can show a clear reason," she stated as she wrote. "If we go back to the beginning of his sentence, we can see if there's a pattern."

"Yeah, but that still doesn't connect him to Miller Beck," Vic said with a frown. "There's gotta be some connection – some motive behind all this."

"You don't think just getting back at my dad would be enough reason to kill my mother?" Cady asked, trying to keep her voice steady. Even after two years, the pain of her mother's death was still sharp.

Vic sighed. "It just seems too convoluted, you know? I get that he's pissed at Walt for arresting him. But his sentence was less than ten years, and hell, he's out in three. I could even see him wanting to get some payback, but he'd probably want to do it personally, don't you think?"

"So, you think he'd go after Dad when he got out, but not my mom."

"Exactly. And he hasn't said shit to Walt other than that one time. So," she mused, tilting her head to one side as she regarded the many papers spread out on Cady's table. "Malachi is in jail. He gets Burns to find someone to kill Martha. She dies, and then nothing? No gloating? He seems like the gloating type. And why all this drama with Henry?"

"Henry was with Dad when he arrested Malachi," Cady answered. "He's probably holding a grudge about that."

"And I still can't figure out how Ridges and Hector fit in. Hell, Hector's testimony would be a slam dunk to get Henry convicted on conspiracy. But instead Ridges kills him? And the scalping bit? That's just messed up."

"Scalping?" Cady echoed in disbelief. "Ridges scalped Hector? That's horrible!"

"No shit. But again, more drama when it's not necessary. It just doesn't add up." She moved several pictures around, and then sighed. "I still keep coming back to your mom. Why her? She had cancer–"

"She was getting better," Cady protested. "But yeah, you're right. It doesn't make sense. If Dad wasn't running any big investigations, then nobody would have been trying to keep him distracted. If Malachi or somebody else wanted to punish Dad, they might have killed my mom but they would have let him know it was a punishment. Or they would have just tried to kill him."

"So tell me more about your mom," Vic requested.

Cady frowned. "What about her?"

"Did she have a job? County position or something?"

A fond smile turned Cady's expression light and happy. "She was a schoolteacher when I was growing up. All the kids loved her. She had to quit when she got sick the first time – she couldn't work for nearly a year, and even then she got tired easily. When she got better, she started doing a lot of volunteer work around the county and on the Rez, like the Literacy Campaign, raising money for the health clinic. Oh, and the casino."

"She volunteered for the casino?"

"No!" Cady chuckled. "Casi-NO – as in, no on the casino. She was part of a group that wanted to keep the casino from being built. They didn't think it would be a good choice for the tribe, but it's hard to argue against jobs and basically guaranteed cash flow for the reservation."

"They lost," Vic surmised – hardly a surprise considering how much construction was still going on north of Durant.

"Yeah, Mom was pretty upset. Her cancer had come back, by then, and she wasn't able to work on it as much. But when she started getting better, I think she was trying to get the organization moving again."

"You must have been in school then?" Vic asked.

"Last year of law school," Cady confirmed. "One of the reasons I came back to Durant was so I could be here for her. Dad can be kinda unreliable when it comes to getting to doctors' appointments on time."

"I bet," Vic snorted. "Do you think he still has some of your mother's papers and such?"

"Why?"

Vic regarded her new – for lack of a better word – friend, and carefully considered her words. "I think Walt being the sheriff might not have had anything to do with her murder. What if she was the target, all along?"

(Author's note – A horse twitch is a device applied to a horse's upper lip to keep them under control. It looks painful, even cruel, but it's the horse equivalent of your grandma pinching your earlobe.

Also, did anyone spot the Elementary reference?)


	4. Chapter 4

**Title: NOT EXACTLY BFF's**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13 for language (c'mon, it's Vic!)**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Starts the day after 'Harvest,' but ignores the rest of the season. **

~Chapter 4~

"Dad had promised my mom he'd build her a house on that land when he retired," Cady explained as she moved a stack of junk from the back of her small garage to an empty space nearby. "When she got sick, they went ahead and started working on the cabin. It's kinda small, so when they moved in, Mom asked me to store some stuff here."

"Uh-huh," Vic grunted as she moved a box dripping tinsel onto another section. "You're sure your dad doesn't have anything squirreled away somewhere else?"

"Pretty sure," came the muffled response as Cady burrowed to the back of a storage shelf. "I think she really wanted me to take over some of her volunteer work, but after I passed the bar, I took that job with the family law center, and I had student loans out the wazoo. Still do," she added, dragging out another box. "Ah-HA!"

Vic wrinkled her nose and regarded the ream box with distaste. It was covered with dust and decorated with a scattering of black mouse droppings. Another ream box, complete with mouse turds and dust, joined the first. "Okay. Take off the lids and bring them in the kitchen, I guess."

They did so, and they each carried one to the kitchen table. The information Vic had brought from the station was scooped to one side, and the boxes placed on top. It took a while to go through them, especially when every other item brought with it a wave of nostalgia for Cady.

"Lots of info here on the casino thing," Vic remarked, finding a stack of bumper stickers saying 'CASI~_NO!_' and moving them to the table, where they promptly slid apart in a glossy white avalanche.

"There should be a mailing list or a phone book or something," Cady told her. "Mom spent a lot of time with these folks in the months before she died. Maybe one of them will be able to tell us something."

"You know," Vic ventured as she scanned a flyer outlining the disadvantages of the casino project, "according to what Branch dug up, Ridges once worked for Jacob Nighthorse."

"I didn't think Nighthorse started working on the casino project until after Mom died," Cady replied, moving aside some other papers. "I thought he was hired when that other guy got fired or whatever."

"Yeah, but now Malachi Strand is working for Nighthorse. That's an awfully big coincidence."

"Maybe assholes flock together?" Cady guessed.

"Maybe," Vic agreed.

By the time they reached the bottom of the boxes, both of them were dusty and sneezing at irregular intervals. "Let's take a break," Cady pleaded, trying to rub her nose with a clean spot on the back of her wrist. Vic nodded, trying her best to stifle another sneeze.

After washing their hands and blowing their noses, the women plopped down on Cady's couch with a fresh beer.

"Well, there's no diary, no note that says, "If I die, the butler did it," Vic deadpanned. "I guess we do this the hard way and go talk to people."

"Yeah," Cady agreed, pondering the piles of paper that had taken over her kitchen table. "You know, I really can't thank you enough for this. You're the first person who hasn't stonewalled me or patted me on the head…"

Vic shrugged as she twisted the cap off her beer and tossed it towards the empty pizza box. She pumped her fist as it rattled into the opening. "You're not getting this for free, you know. I'm going to be asking for a favor later on."

"Right. You said you needed a lawyer?" Cady asked, looking at Vic expectantly. "What can I do?"

Caught in mid-sip, Vic stalled. "Um, yeah. But we don't have to do this right now."

The younger woman chuckled. "You know, you sound just like my dad. When you ask him something, and he doesn't have a lie handy and he doesn't want to tell you the truth, he does this deer in the headlights, um thing. You'd think someone who's been running for office for that long would be a better liar, but he's not."

Her warm, knowing expression let Vic know she was being called out on her bullshit. Rolling her eyes, Vic reached over to her jacket and pulled out a folded set of papers.

"Here. I need someone to read this over and make sure I'm not getting screwed."

Intrigued, Cady opened the papers and read the first line. "Petition to Divor..ohhh. Wow."

"I get a little bit farther than that before I get lost," Vic said.

"Shut up," Cady ordered. Perusing the sheets, she nodded at certain places until she reached the end. "Okay. So, first thing, you have to sell your house."

"Right. That totally sucks, but I can't make the payments on one salary. Not unless I take up stripping in Odin."

That earned her an eyebrow raise, but Cady let it slide. "The rest of this looks pretty standard. No kids, so no custody issues. You split the savings account. No cars?"

"Sean has a company vehicle," Vic answered. "We both do," she added, waving her beer bottle at the living room window, through which the tail of her patrol truck was just visible.

"Right. Selling the house and dividing any equity-"

"Which isn't much," Vic interjected.

"Any retirement monies stay with the individual." Cady glanced at Vic to see if that was acceptable.

She nodded. "Neither one of us has much saved, so it's no big deal."

"No? All right, then. I'd say it looks fair. Once you sign that and file it, I think it's a minimum twenty day waiting period. And the judge here in Absaroka County usually requires you both to attend the final hearing before granting the divorce."

Scraping her upper lip with her teeth, Vic nodded, then inhaled decisively. Grabbing a pen, she plucked the papers from Cady's hand and scrawled her signature at the bottom.

"Okay," Cady managed. "Let me get my notary seal, and you can drop this off at the county clerk's office tomorrow."

Rather than answer, Vic drained her beer and went after another one.

Once the legalities were taken care of, Cady opened a fresh beer herself and settled back on the sofa. Finally she broke the awkward silence.

"I've never had anyone ask me to marry him – at least not when he wasn't drunk," she said.

"You and Branch never talked about it?"

"Branch? God, no. He's not marriage material. I'm not sure I'm marriage material."

"Yeah. Don't rush it. Trust me."

Another silence fell, and the two women drank their beer, staring at nothing.

"Holy shit," Cady muttered. "I've got to date some more."

"Go for it," Vic told her. "Just have some better taste next time."

Cady grinned and shifted sideways to regard her companion. "Branch wasn't that bad. He really can be sweet - when he's not being a butthead. And have you ever seen _him_ without a shirt on?"

Vic ignored the implications of Cady's emphasis. "No, I haven't. Nice?"

"Ummm," Cady moaned, and then giggled.

"Okay," Vic acknowledged with an eye roll and a smile. "I will admit Branch is easy on the eyes. But then he opens his mouth, and all the magic is just _gone_."

"Well, the one thing Wyoming has is plenty of men to choose from," Cady said. "But, hey," she added softly, "I'm sorry your marriage didn't work out."

Vic swallowed the rest of her beer. "Yeah, me too. I'm even more sorry that I'm gonna have to tell my folks."

A heavy knock came from the front door, and the two women looked at each other.

"It's after ten," Cady reminded her, and Vic reached for the duty weapon under her jacket on the nearby chair.

"Cady? You home?" came a deep, familiar voice, and both women relaxed.

"Yeah, Dad," Cady called back, quickly moving to the front door and opening it.

On her porch, Walt Longmire shoved his hat back on his head and gave his daughter a friendly, open smile. She was immediately suspicious.

"What's up, Dad?"

"Oh, I was driving by. Saw Vic's truck here. Wondered if everything was okay."

"Henry called you, didn't he?"

"Maybe." Walt glanced from his one and only child to his deputy. "He might have mentioned the two of you were on the warpath."

"C'mon in," Cady told him with a resigned sigh. "Might as well get this over with."

"Get what over with?" he asked, stepping inside and taking off his hat. Like a proper cowboy, he placed it brim side up on the small table beside her front door as he walked into the living room. "What are you two working on?"

"A murder investigation," Cady told him. "And I've made more progress in the last fourteen hours than I have in a month."

"Cady, I wanted you to stay out of this," Walt began, but his daughter was having none of it.

"I'm already in this, Dad. My mother was murdered - my godfather is going to be convicted of another murder unless I do something. I'm his lawyer – I _need_ to be involved in this."

"All right," he allowed. "Then why get Vic involved? She doesn't need to be dragged through all this."

At the mention of her name, the woman on the couch stood up. "You must be having a problem with your short term memory," Vic observed. "Just a few days ago you said you recalled that I wasn't someone who liked to be told what to do."

"So you drop everything at the station, leave your duties, to come dig through my family's problems?"

At that, Vic put her hands on her hips and leveled her chin up another inch. Cady was struck by the similar posture between the two – both stood in deceptively casual stances, both with their jaws at stubborn angles. They could have been reflections of each other in a carnival funhouse mirror.

"You also said you didn't want a deputy around with her head only halfway on her job, so I'm taking some personal time. Cady asked for my help, and you have no authority over my time off."

"You're involving yourself with my wife's murder," Walt began, but was cut off.

"I'm working for Henry Standing Bear's defense attorney, so you can piss off. You want to worry about someone, why don't you find Branch and take away his gun and his badge? He's been running around this county like a bull with a cattle prod up its ass."

"Dad," Cady interjected before things could escalate. Strangely, she was beginning to see a pattern of that with Vic. She'd never considered herself a peacemaker before, but she was getting a lot of practice at it lately. "Vic found some things in the Miller Beck case that don't add up. I think it's worth taking a look at."

Walt looked at Cady, and then back at Vic. For all his pride, he knew Vic was a first rate investigator, and if she'd taken notice of something, then it was probably worth his time. And no matter how much he wanted to protect Cady, as well as his own secrets, much of the past few months had proven to him that he was incapable of doing so.

Finally, he tamped down his ire and nodded. "All right. Tell me what you found."

Vic waved one hand at Cady, who took that to mean that she should do the talking. Tucking her fiery red hair behind one ear, she began laying out the inconsistencies Vic had pointed out. The helpful witness who sent her father and Henry after Miller Beck, and the possibility that the purse had been planted. The knife that was found with Beck's body, with DNA on it from a murder that had, at that point, taken place months earlier.

"Somebody probably expected you to kill that guy, Dad, and then go to jail for murder."

"But if Beck was paid to kill your wife, then he probably panicked – either when you kicked down his door that night, or else when Hector found him and beat the hell out of him. He probably called whoever it was that hired him, expecting protection."

"Instead, they killed him," he said, seeing where this was going. "And they must have had the knife that he used on Martha. Maybe whoever is behind all this gave Beck that knife when they hired him, and took it and Martha's purse as proof that the job was done."

He turned Vic. "You think they planted that purse to lead Henry and me to Beck." It wasn't quite a question, but she nodded.

"And when they killed Beck," Walt finished, "they put the knife on his body so that it could come back to me."

"Exactly. Which fits in with all the gamesmanship I keep seeing," Vic answered. "Someone's a deep planner."

"Do you have Beck's phone records? Does he have phone records?"

"I think so," Cady answered.

"Right. Okay, let's get them if we don't have them already. See which numbers match up to his druggie friends, and which ones don't. Check for any burner phones from those records, and see if we can cross-reference any numbers." Cady nodded, but Vic just stared at him. "What?" he asked her.

"Every time I think you're completely hopeless, you surprise me. Burner phones? You been watching T.V. again?"

"Nope," he replied simply. "Went to a seminar last year."


	5. Chapter 5

**Title: NOT EXACTLY BFF's**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13 for language (c'mon, it's Vic!)**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Starts the day after 'Harvest,' but ignores the rest of the season. **

~Chapter 5~

"Okay, so," Vic stated, "tomorrow I'll start with Miller Beck's phone records, and Cady can subpoena Malachi's visitor records."

"I've already contacted Denver about getting Mom's case file," Cady volunteered. "I'll put in a request for Strand's records first thing in the morning."

"And Ferg's is putting together that background check on that Burns guy. Walt, there's a couple of mailing lists and such in the boxes that Cady had from Martha," Vic continued. "If you can look them over, maybe figure out who she talked to the most, we can interview them and see if she mentioned anything about anything…" She trailed off, knowing it was a stretch but still needed to be checked out.

"All right," he said simply, holding her eye for a moment, which she took to mean that she was forgiven for interfering.

"I also want to spend some time going over Henry's case file," Vic addressed Cady. "When we get the file on your Mom, I'd like to go over that as well."

"I think I should do it with you," Walt told her. "You've got the fresh eyes, and I can probably answer any questions you come up with."

"Sounds good. Look, why don't we call it a night," Vic suggested, catching sight of Cady trying to hide a yawn behind one hand. "It's getting late, and we've got things to do tomorrow." She began gathering beer bottles and papers from the coffee table where they'd accumulated.

Cady noticed when Vic folded up her divorce papers and slid them into her coat pocket, and assumed that she wasn't ready to tell her boss about this just yet. She busied herself helping to clear away the remains of what had to have been one of the oddest 'girl's night' she'd had a while.

"How much have you two had to drink?" Walt asked, surveying the beer bottles they held.

"Oh, a few," Cady admitted, smiling brightly.

"Right. You need a ride home?" he asked Vic.

Vic looked up, her green eyes wide and ingenuous, and just a touch glassy from having slammed two beers in the last twenty minutes.

"You need a ride," he decided. "Unless you want to sleep on Cady's sofa."

"No, actually, I want to sleep in my own bed, in my own house. Thanks anyway," she directed to Cady. Cady said nothing but continued to tidy up. She knew Vic really meant she wanted to do as such for as long as it was still her house.

When the debris was cleared and the papers stacked, she turned to her father. "All right, then. I'll call you when I hear from Denver." She handed him a small address book and several folded sheets of paper. "Here's all the contact information I could find on Mom's volunteer work. Maybe you'll find something."

"Thanks, Punk," he told her before turning to Vic. "You ready?"

Having been standing by, loathe to interrupt the tiny Longmire family, Vic nodded and followed him out to his truck. The spoke little on the way, but Durant was a small town and it took only a few minutes to drive to her house. When he turned into the driveway, he noticed the lack of other vehicles.

"Sean out of town?" he asked casually.

"Um, yeah," Vic replied truthfully. She didn't mention that he'd packed everything in his side of the closet before he'd left on this trip, nor the set of divorce papers he'd left beside the coffee pot on his way out.

"Guess he's feeling okay, then? Everything back to normal?"

Vic nodded, unwilling to elaborate how back to normal her marriage, or lack thereof, had become lately. She closed her eyes briefly, wondering what it would have been like to have a marriage like the one Walt had with his wife. She couldn't imagine Sean mourning her death for more than a few weeks, let alone the two years that Walt was going on for Martha.

"Hey, Walt," she called. "Can I ask you something?"

He turned to look at her. "Sure."

"After your wife died – after you found Miller Beck," she amended, "you could have gone to the police. They wouldn't have charged you with anything. You might have gotten a lecture or a nasty-gram, maybe even a formal complaint for going old school cowboy on them, but they still would have arrested Beck for you. What happened, after that night?"

He dropped his gaze from hers, and stared out the windshield for several long moments before abruptly yanking the door handle, letting himself out into the brisk night air. Vic watched his long strides take him further away from the truck, her brows pulled together in puzzlement. When he stopped at the center of her yard he stood there, his hands on his hips with his elbows out. His head tilted back, and his breath billowing in the darkness.

Dismayed at her own insensitivity, Vic climbed out after him. She stopped several paces away, trying to think of the words to set this right. "Look, Walt – I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up anything…"

"I failed, Vic," he interrupted her apology bluntly.

"What? I mean, yeah, you got your ass handed to you. But it sounds like there was a whole flop house full of assholes that night. You're lucky they didn't kill you."

"Not that. Not just that." He scanned the night sky, looking for answers it would not share. "I didn't go to the police because I realized it didn't matter. I failed, in every way a man can fail. I've worn a badge for twenty-five years, but that night I took my badge off and tried to do something that went against everything I stood for. I'd become a man I didn't recognize. A man I couldn't respect." He stared at her for a moment, then turned his attention back to the stars in the darkened sky.

"I couldn't protect my wife. Couldn't avenge her death. Then I thought Henry had gone to do what I couldn't and that just made me even less of a man." He swallowed hard. "And then I failed as a father, shutting out my daughter when she needed me the most."

Vic blinked rapidly at the man in front of her before tilting her own gaze up to the silent points of light strewn far above. She knew what it was to fail spectacularly. A wild, exciting fling with an older man had soured, then become completely unsustainable when he had turned out to be married. Her inability to turn a blind eye to his partner's corruption had been followed with enough harassment to end not only her promising career but even the ability to work in the city where she'd lived all her life. And now, after coming to Wyoming to start a new life with her husband, her marriage had shriveled and died a slow, lingering death.

Finally, Vic heaved a sigh. "One foot, Walt," she murmured.

"What's that?" Walt asked after moment, still staring at the sky.

She rubbed her nose, trying to disguise a sniffle in the process. "Sometimes, that's all you can do. Just – keep putting one foot in front of the other – and hope you end up in a better place."

"Yeah," Walt agreed softly.

At last he turned to look at her, and nodded once in acknowledgement of her solidarity and her right to empathize with him, recognizing that she had also had her share of failures. Of all the people he knew, she'd had her world upended almost as thoroughly has he had.

"Sometimes."


	6. Chapter 6

**Title: NOT EXACTLY BFF's**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13 for language (c'mon, it's Vic!)**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Starts the day after 'Harvest,' but ignores the rest of the season. **

~Chapter 6~

"A blonde, a redhead and a sheriff walk into a bar," Henry began as he saw Vic, Cady and Walt come through the door of the Red Pony just before lunchtime the next day. "There is a joke in there somewhere."

"Not much of one," Walt warned him. "We need to go to Denver."

"And I am included in this 'we?'" he asked.

"You betcha," said Walt.

Vic propped her elbows on the bar. "We need to find Branch and talk his crazy ass down off the ledge. Cady needs to get some case files, and you need to show me where you found Beck. Some skanky bar called Rolanda's Rec Room?"

"I've been trying to get down there for better than a week," Walt added. "Vic is your chaperone as far as the security monitoring company is concerned, and I just had to promise Ferg a four day weekend to get him to pull a double shift today, so we've got to go."

Henry gave them all a long look, but flipped his bar towel over one shoulder and went to go talk to his cook. A few customers had come in already, but he had a good staff and they were always up for more hours. Just as they were about to walk out, Cady's phone rang.

"Oh – it's the prosecutor's office," she said, quickly pushing the buttons. After an eager greeting, her voice changed to one of dismayed inquiry. The other three listened, exchanging various glances of concern.

"What's going on?" Walt finally demanded.

Cady put one hand over the phone's receiver. "They say we don't need Mom's entire case file and they're not going to give it to us."

"Is Fales trying to block us?"

"Maybe," Cady ventured before going back to the phone. "No, you don't understand. This is an important part of a murder trial. It speaks directly to the motive… Yes, I do!"

"Give me that," Vic ordered, all but pulling the phone from Cady's hand. "Who is this?" she demanded sharply. "Right, assistant whatever the fuck you are, you're blocking access to evidence needed for a capitol murder charge." She paused. "Cady Longmire is licensed to practice in both Colorado and Wyoming, so that's bullshit. Even if she wasn't, you can't legally withhold pertinent information from Henry Standing Bear's defense team."

She paused again. "No, you - listen up, shitbird! I want the entire file on Martha Longmire's murder investigation ready for me to pick up when I get there in three hours, or I'm going straight to the nearest news station about your office's lack of cooperation and your obvious attempt to railroad a Native American into a murder conviction without due process. Also, I'm missing a DNA analysis on the Miller Beck murder file," she quickly referenced the case number from memory, "and it better fucking be included when I get there."

She went on to quote a section and verse of the Colorado penal code, reminding the clerk that the prosecution was required to provide the defense with copies of all evidence it intended to use during the prosecution, including DNA testing.

"No, I don't have to pay for the testing," she snarled at whoever it was on the other end of the line. "If I dispute the state's findings I can pay for independent testing, but you have to prove they were the victim's teeth in the first place.

"Dental records? From where? What the fuck kind of meth-head has dental records?"

Several Red Pony patrons turned to look at the blonde yelling into a cell phone. Walt and Henry exchanged a look, while Cady took a step back as Vic's volume rose even higher.

"You and I both know that loose teeth are nearly impossible to connect to a corpse just from dental records and it requires a DNA comparison for a hundred percent identification match. So can the bullshit, did up those test results – and those fucking dental records – and quit fucking around wasting my time!"

Pushing the button on Cady's phone, she handed it back. "They should be ready when we get there," she informed Cady in a normal tone. "By the way, we might want to take a look at this Detective Fales. He sounds like a real douchebag."

"Thanks," Cady managed after a moment.

"What?" Vic asked the two men, who were regarding her like a snake they had yet to identify and weren't entirely sure how dangerous it might be.

"I have never experience a hurricane before," Henry told her. "I am impressed. And just a little bit frightened."

Vic threw him an eye roll. "You've never seen how big city politicking works," she informed him. "Bureaucracy is the same bullshit no matter where you go."

"Is that true?" Cady asked. "If they can't prove those teeth are Beck's, they don't have a case?"

Vic raised her and waggled it back and forth. "Eh. Depends on the prosecutor. Some won't go to court without a slam-dunk. You'll probably get a plea deal offer, if you haven't already. If they can't get enough DNA from those teeth, it puts a big hole in their case. Most of it depends on how reliable their witness is. I would love to interview that guy."

"You think we could discredit him?" Walt asked. "This case without a witness could fall apart fast."

"No witness, they've got no real case," Vic agreed. "Possession of a dead man's teeth isn't a smoking gun – it's just creepy." She gave Henry a significant glance, which he ignored.

"Especially if we can get anyone to testify to Hector's habit of knocking out teeth for pay," Cady added, her brain starting to work on the angle that Vic had been emphasizing. They didn't have to prove who had really killed Beck – they simply had to make it believable that he wasn't killed by Henry.

"By the way, if I haven't said it before," she told Vic, "You are officially my hero. That dork has been stalling me every chance he gets."

Under normal circumstances, it took nearly five hours to drive from Durant to Denver. With a five o'clock deadline and a determined driver in an official County Sheriff's Bronco, the trip was accomplished in just under four; they had forty-five minutes to spare when Walt parked in front of the imposing office building that housed the Colorado Attorney General's office in Denver. Cady and Vic disappeared inside, leaving the two men to cool their heels and wait.

Henry looked up through the windshield at the bronze and brown building; it was so tall it was hard to see the top from where they were parked. "I do not understand it," he said finally. "Why would people voluntarily sentence themselves to a lifetime in a tower of jail cells?"

Walt gave a dry chuckle. "Never understood it myself, Henry." He took in the building, the mass of people wearing business suits and talking on cell phones and all hurrying past without even looking at each other or the world they moved through. "It's not the walls that make the prison," he mused.

"Nor iron bars the cage," Henry replied. "However, I do not wish to further test that theory."

They gave each other a look born of nearly forty years of friendship, and just shook their heads. A few minutes later, when Walt stiffened, Henry immediately noticed and followed his gaze. Two women had just exited the building, Cady carrying her briefcase, which swung with a greater weight than when she'd entered. Moving up towards the pair, however, was a familiar bulky figure with a dark, bald head.

"Miss Longmire," he called. Cady glanced at him long enough to recognize him, but raised her chin and continued on towards the Bronco. Vic kept pace, though she also kept an eye on Detective Fales as he moved to intercept them.

"Really, Miss Longmire," the detective cajoled, his face stretched in a friendly smile.

"What?" Cady snapped, stopping within a few yards of her father's vehicle. Walt watched but made no move to interfere, one elbow draped with deceptive ease over the rolled down window.

"There's no reason for this hostility," he chided her. He sent another friendly smile towards the men in the Bronco. They did not return it.

"There's every reason for this hostility," Cady responded, turning on him. "You used me. You used my grief, and my naiveté, and my own need to know against me, and against my father."

"I had a murder to solve," Fales said with a shrug. "I was just doing my job."

"Too bad you couldn't do your job for Cady's mom," Vic observed.

"That was not my case," he protested affably.

"Like hell," Vic shot back. "It had direct bearing on your case – you knew your own department shut down that investigation after a month. You were dogging Miller Beck's case for six months at least. Surely you could have spared some of that time for putting the whole picture together."

His smile broadened. "I've heard of you, Victoria Moretti. Your reputation is fairly impressive. So you know that if I had a valid lead, I had to keep my focus on the case at hand."

"Your lead was my father," Cady reminded him. "But now Henry is the one you've pinned this on."

"It was where the evidence led."

"You've got jack for evidence, and you know it," Vic declared. "You've got a flaky witness and a pair of broken teeth, and this case has holes big enough to crawl through. Is that why you're down here? Did the prosecutor call you, trying to get you to head Cady off?"

"Miss Longmire is inappropriate to be acting as defense attorney for Henry Standing Bear."

"I'm not on the witness list," Cady shot back. "I had no idea what happened to my mother until you dragged me through the gutters and used me. I'm entirely appropriate counsel for Henry." She gave him a withering look. "You're just pissed because you can't pin this on my father."

Fales smile faded. "Men like your father get what's coming to them, eventually," he told her.

"Men like my father? What kind of men do you mean? The ones who work a lifetime at a low paying job getting shot at regularly and thanked very rarely?"

"You may be blind to the kind of man he is, Miss Longmire, and he may have been a wonderful father, but I assure you he's not the humanitarian you think. Men like him – long-standing sheriffs who run unopposed year after year, running their counties like tin gods..."

"Oh, bullshit," Vic interjected. "Some Jim Crow sheriff busted your chops as a kid, so you put a white man's best friend in jail. Does that make it all better?"

"Young lady, you have no idea…"

Vic advanced, pointing emphatically at Fales' chest but carefully not touching him as she hissed in his face. "Don't you tell me about how hard it is to make it in this man's world. I'm the first female cop in four _generations_ of cops in my family, so I know exactly how hard you have to work to get to the point where people start treating you like a human being instead of barely tolerating you. Yeah, it sucked for you, and it sucked for me, and tomorrow it'll suck for somebody else. So, congratulations – you made it suck for Henry Standing Bear."

"I think we're done here, Detective," Cady told him. Turning curtly, she walked to the Bronco and got in. Vic shot one last glare at Fales and then followed. Walt and Henry, having been front row center of the confrontation, merely nodded as they drove off and left Fales fuming in the plaza area, staring after them.


	7. Chapter 7

**Title: NOT EXACTLY BFF's**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13 for language (c'mon, it's Vic!)**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Starts the day after 'Harvest,' but ignores the rest of the season. **

~Chapter 7~

"Call Branch," Walt instructed Cady, several minutes after they driven away from Fales. "Tell him to meet us at that bar – Rolanda's Roundup, or whatever it's called."

"Branch has never struck me as being particularly obedient," Henry observed. "What makes you think he will come when you whistle this time?"

"He will if he wants to keep his job," Walt replied firmly.

As Cady scrolled through her phone, Vic glanced over and noticed that the picture on her contact list was a shot of Branch leaning against a doorway, his uniform shirt unbuttoned and left loose over a fairly impressive six pack. She snorted.

"I haven't changed that yet," Cady admitted, putting the phone to her ear.

"Not judging," Vic told her, but made no effort to hide her smirk.

"I left a message," Cady announced a few minutes later. "I told him if he didn't have my car there, I was going to report it stolen."

"That should get his attention," Henry commented. "Now what?"

"I want to see this place where you found Beck," Vic ordered from the back seat. "Actually, walk me through your investigation last year."

Nodding, Walt hit the turn signal and changed directions.

"The detective working on my wife's case told me they'd gotten a couple of hits on the witness sketch down around the Five Points area. It's not the nicest part of town. I showed Beck's picture around for two days before I finally found someone who knew him, knew where he hung out."

Cady reached over and locked her door as they drove through a seedy area, littered with bars and tattoo parlors, a few convenience stores and other store fronts that advertised in a variety of languages for services that weren't immediately obvious. Walt pointed to one bar, where patrons were already getting serious about their drinking.

"This is where I ran across Jonas Gaitherson," he pointed to the parking lot. "He said he knew Beck. He wanted twenty bucks to tell me anything."

"And he gave you an address?" Vic asked.

"No, but he said that Beck was making a score down at the convenience mart and we could probably still find him there. Henry and I did, and we followed him to his place."

"Show me," Vic ordered, rubbing at her forehead.

"Are you alright?" Cady asked, noticing the dark circles that had yet to fade from under Vic's eyes.

"Yeah, I've just done too much reading lately," she replied.

"Want to borrow my reading glasses?" Henry quipped from the front seat.

"No – I'm not that old," she snarked back. "Besides, I have my own," she confessed.

"You read quite a bit while we drove down here," Walt commented, watching her in the rear-view mirror. "Should I remind you that you're still recovering from a concussion?"

"Would everyone please just shut up?" Vic ordered, rolling down the window and putting her face in the rush of fresh air. "I'm fine."

The other three exchanged concerned looks, but remained silent. Rifling through her purse, Cady unearthed a bottle of ibuprofen and handed it over.

"Thanks," Vic muttered. She rolled out three and swallowed them dry. Putting her head back, she was silent until the Bronco stopped moving again.

"Well, this is it," Walt announced. "Or it was."

The four of them observed the leveled charcoal and debris, once a house, that filled a non-descript city lot. Tattered police tape still fluttered from several upright burnt timbers, but it was a complete charred mess. The surrounding houses looked as though they might benefit from the same treatment; what grass grew in the yards was scraggly and unkempt, and boarded up windows were not uncommon.

"Compared to some areas of Philly, this is not bad at all," Vic declared, surveying the neighborhood. "I've seen worse."

"Somehow, it reminds me of the Rez," Henry commented. "It is, however, more interesting at night."

"You talked to Miller Beck here?" Cady asked her godfather.

"I followed him from here to that bar – Renaldo's Rec Room. That is where I threatened him."

Walt followed Henry's directions and pulled the Bronco around, headed towards the bar in question. About halfway there, a flash of movement drew his attention to the rear-view mirror.

Still concerned with Vic's headache, he craned his neck to get a better idea of what she was doing, only to catch a glimpse of Vic's bare shoulder, bisected by the thin strap of her undershirt. While he'd seen her dressed down more than once, he'd never actually witnessed her changing before. A less revealing sweater quickly covered her; one that didn't immediately identify her as a member of law enforcement.

Sitting in the passenger seat, Henry noticed his friend's sudden double-take.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothin'," Walt replied casually, his eyes glued to the road in front of him. He carefully did not look in the mirror again until they arrived.

"There's Branch," Cady commented, seeing her former lover leaning against her Jeep. His face was set on neutral, but his disposition was evident. Everyone left the Bronco, but Walt accompanied his daughter over to his deputy.

Without a word, Cady held out her hand. Branch passed the keys to her without taking his eyes off his boss.

"Branch," Walt greeted him. "You ever pull this shit again, you better leave your badge and gun on my desk first."

"Maybe I will."

"Then we'll be sure to hold a fine funeral for you."

"C'mon, Walt…"

"Don't start. You're not thinking straight."

"That what Vic told you?" he drawled sarcastically. "She's got a bad habit of that."

Walt's jaw set hard, remembering the letter she'd reluctantly handed him the night before she and Cady had started working together. Its contents were made acceptable only by the fact that it hadn't been the resignation letter he'd been expecting from her.

"Vic told me a lot of things," he said plainly. "It's her job to uphold the law. That's your job, too. The only reason you're not out on your ass is because Sam Poteet isn't pressing charges. So if you want to stick around and help on this investigation, you follow orders. Otherwise you head back to Durant and stay there. Those are your choices. Are we clear?"

"Crystal," Branch ground out. "So what's our next move?"

"This bar is the last place Henry saw Miller Beck," Walt replied as Henry and Vic joined them.

"We already questioned the bartender," Branch declared, obviously considering this a waste of time. "He remembered Beck and his friend, a guy named Tug Retton. He didn't recognize Darius Burns."

"What about Ridges, or Malachi Strand?" Vic asked. "You show their pictures around?"

"No," he admitted.

"Cady said some woman sent you a Snapfish image with David Ridges in the background," Vic continued. "Did you give her your phone number? Tell her your name?"

He shook his head. "The message came in with the sender blocked."

"Well, if you didn't give it to her, and you didn't pass out a business card or anything to the bartender, then how did she get your number?" Cady asked.

Branch had no answer to that, but Henry's face turned grim. "She already knew. If David Ridges really is alive, he is toying with you."

"He's alive," Branch ground out. "I know it."

"Okay, we believe you," Cady assured him quickly.

Vic threw Walt a raised eyebrow that said she wasn't entirely convinced, but didn't argue. "Let's go talk to that really helpful bartender," she suggested. "If he didn't know Burns, maybe he'll recognize Ridges."

As it happened, he did. He scratched at his cheek with his artificial hand, contemplating the picture of David Ridges.

"Dude, yeah, he looks sorta familiar, but I don't know why," he answered. "Haven't seen him for a while, anyway, but that hair is something you remember when yours is all gone." He ran his natural hand over the stubble on his scalp. "But I don't remember him ever talking to Beck."

"What about that woman?" Vic asked.

"What woman?"

"When I was in here a few days ago, some woman took my picture," Branch told him. "Tall, short dark hair, wearing some sorta retro fifties look."

"No idea, man," he confessed. "Look, you saw how crazy this place gets some nights. I'm doing good to remember drink orders for five minutes. Sorry." He paused. "Hey, wait a minute. I remember now!"

"The woman?" Walt asked.

"No – that Indian dude with the long hair. He used to have one or two with Tug, before he went all Tweakerbell."

"Tweakerbell?" Cady echoed as they made it back to the parking lot, dodging through the accumulating patrons headed in for a night of drinking and other, less savory activities.

"Addicted," Walt answered shortly. His daughter gave him a look, half impressed, half dismayed that he was familiar with the drug terminology.

"Okay, we have a solid connection between Ridges and Beck through this Retton guy," Vic told them all. "And we know Ridges, if he is still alive, is watching Branch."

"That tells us jack," Branch announced. "And Ridges is still out there."

"Something tells me we're not gonna get any more answers here in Denver," Walt added, shaking his head thoughtfully. "Cady, Vic - Henry and I've got one more call to make, but why don't you go get something to eat, then head home. Branch, you go with 'em."

All three gave him a look.

"Am I babysitting them, or they babysitting me?" Branch asked in an acid tone. "Where're you going, anyway?"

"You don't have any wheels, so you're bumming a ride," Walt pointed out. "I suggest you mind your manners, or they're liable to leave you to hitchhike home. I'm gonna go have a chat with Detective Vogel, the detective that handled Martha's case."

Branch gave the two women a considering glance, but didn't argue any further.

"Want me to go with you?" Vic asked.

"Nope – I've already figured out how to antagonize this guy. The two of us together would probably send him over the edge. Besides, I want you keeping an eye on Branch."

"Oo-kay," she agreed reluctantly.

"You know what to look for," Walt reminded her. "And I trust you to be able to handle him if he loses it again. Keep my daughter safe."

Vic nodded, better understanding his motivations. "All right. See ya back at the ranch," she told him, and followed after the other two towards Cady's Jeep.

(Author's Note: I've only been to Denver a few times, so I apologize to any Denver-ites who might be offended by my assumptions of neighborhoods. I based my 'facts' off the Denver Post Crime Map. I also made up 'Tweakerbell.' Give Disney my apologies.)


	8. Chapter 8

**Title: NOT EXACTLY BFF's**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13 for language (c'mon, it's Vic!)**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Takes place after 'Harvest' but veers off from canon before 'Counting Coup.'**

~Chapter 8~

Driving at less than the break-neck pace her father had employed, Cady arrived back in Durant just after two in the morning. The five hour drive had seemed even longer; she and Vic had ridden up front, talking occasionally but ignoring Branch and his attitude in the back. She hadn't argued when Vic directed her to drop Branch off first; if she'd been honest with herself, she would have admitted she didn't really want to spend any time alone with the man who'd once shared her bed.

By seven, Vic was awake again and stumbling towards the shower. It gave her the energy and focus needed to dress and get into work, where she figured that half a night's sleep was better than nothing, and the deficit could be made up with caffeine.

"I guess you're here today," Ruby surmised as Vic headed straight for the coffee pot. Vic gave her a thumb's up without removing the mug of black gold from her mouth.

Ferg was equally surprised to see her, but greeted her with a neutral good morning.

"Thought you were taking some time off?" Vic commented when she'd gotten through the first half of her cup. "Four day weekend?"

"Starting tomorrow," Ferg replied. "I'm going fishing, and you all can figure it out."

"Figure what out?" Branch asked as he slouched in through the door, looking unkempt and haggard despite obviously having showered recently.

"Whatever it is you all are doing," Ferg said sullenly before walking off towards the bathroom.

"What's his problem?" Branch asked, staring after the stout deputy.

"I wouldn't worry about Ferg if I were you," Vic warned him, not bothering to remove her own surly edge from her voice. "Right now you're the one on the shit list."

She took another sip of coffee, then muttered, more to the coffee than her fellow deputy, "Hell, at my old job you'd be up for a psych eval."

"I'm not crazy!" Branch insisted yet again, his blue eyes glaring.

"Maybe not. But you sure as hell have some PTSD issues."

His response was short and succinct. "Bullshit."

"You attacked Cady at the hospital. You _kidnapped_ a man and poured peyote tea down his throat. You broke into my house and went through my computer… does any of that sound like something you'd normally do? Tell me you're sleeping at night, not having nightmares. You can't, can you?"

Unable to answer, Branch looked away.

"You got shot, Branch. You haven't taken the time to heal up, physically or mentally. You're obsessing over this David Ridges…"

"While you and Walt and Cady waste time on this Miller Beck cold case!" Branch exploded. "Henry killed the guy who killed Walt's wife, and none of you want to admit it!"

"I don't know who killed Beck, but if Ridges is involved in this, then you running around focused on just him is not helping! So get your head out of your ass and stop going off like a kid throwing a temper tantrum!"

"You're one to talk about temper," Branch shot back. "How'd you ever manage to keep a job in Philly?"

Vic's expression turned hard and cold. "I am one to talk, Branch. I've been shot, on the job. If I hadn't been wearing a vest, I'd be dead. And they never even pressed charges on the little shit because they already had him on a murder rap.

"I had mandatory counseling, and I had to pass a psych test before they let me back on the street, and I'm telling you, Branch – you cannot cowboy through this. You will end up dead, or hurting someone else. Probably someone who doesn't deserve it. Like Cady."

Incensed beyond reason, Branch stood fast enough to send his chair rocketing back into the wall. Without another word he stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

Ferg stood in the open space by the jail cells, having just caught the last bit.

"Branch hurt Cady?"

"No, she's fine," Vic bit out. "Did you get anything more on that Burns guy?"

"Yeah," he answered after a long moment. "Here."

He slapped a file folder on her desk and went back to his own.

Vic stared at him, genuinely surprised. Ferg was typically cheerful and easy-going, which made his current hostile attitude all the more surprising. "Seriously, who peed in your Cheerios this morning?"

"You wouldn't understand," Ferg muttered.

"Fine. You know what? Branch is pissed at me. You might as well be pissed off, too."

Slamming his desk drawer, Ferg turned to face her. "I'm not the office gopher, okay?"

"What?"

"Ferg, get this. Ferg, do that. Ferg, fetch this. I'm not a dog – I'm not the office errand boy!

"You and Branch, and Walt, too, you all treat me like some kid. You're the super cop, and Branch is a stuck up S.O.B., pardon my French. And Walt's so busy chasing his tail lately, he's barely here."

Open-mouthed, Vic frowned at the chubby deputy. She swallowed her first sharp retort, and reconsidered her words.

"You're right. Okay? You're not the errand boy. I've been doing it too." Rubbing at her forehead, she closed her eyes briefly. "I'm sorry. I just – things have been really shitty lately, and I'm not handling it well."

"All what things?" Ferg asked grudgingly.

Glancing in the direction of Walt's office, Vic lowered her voice. "Well, for starters, Sean left me. I found the divorce papers in the kitchen under the coffee pot the other morning."

"Seriously?" Ferg asked, then swallowed. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," she told him wearily. "So - I'm sorry if I've been a bitch lately. You didn't deserve it."

"Okay," he said reluctantly, but refused to budge from his previous determination. "So are you gonna tell me what else is going on? Who's this Burns guy?"

Huffing a quick, resigned sigh, Vic dug the rounded heels of her hiking boots into the old wooden floorboards and dragged herself, chair and all, over towards Ferg's desk with short, choppy steps.

"Okay. You know Henry is being charged with the murder of that tweaker down in Denver, right?"

"Beck, right? The guy that killed Mrs. Longmire?"

"Right. So, it's possible that this Burns guy was the one who sent Beck after her. On Malachi Strand's orders."

"Whoa – really? Because Walt arrested Malachi?"

Vic gave Ferg an approving nod, pleased that he'd deduced the suspect's motivations so quickly.

"The thing is, some of the other pieces don't really fit. Like the way Strand and his pal Burns are both working for Jacob Nighthorse now. And why was Hector White Buffalo murdered? Then you throw Ridges and him faking his death in there, and it's a mess and a half."

"Didn't that Ridges guy used to work for Nighthorse?" Ferg asked.

"Yeah. And so did Hector, or at least he knew him. It's a lot of coincidences, and all we get are more questions and nothing's adding up."

"Like what?"

"Well…" Vic began. "For starters, why did Hector break out of the Cumberland County jail? Walt put him there to keep him off Detective Fales' radar. Why'd he suddenly decide to go apeshit and escape the other night?"

"Did you ask 'em?"

"No – I didn't stick around. I probably should have, but they had a couple of injured cops and I didn't want to remind them it was our prisoner who did it."

Ferg frowned thoughtfully. "So…maybe we should give them a call and ask them what happened?"

"We could," Vic agreed, less than enthusiastic. "But I'd feel better if we did it in person. You know – go in and schmooze them a bit, ask if everything's okay, if there's anything we can do to help them out...

"And then just casually ask what set him off, right?" Ferg added, a sly grin dawning on his face. "Maybe check their visitor's log, or see if he got a phone call or something."

"Exactly," Vic told him with a matching smile.

"I could totally do that," Ferg volunteered. "I mean, I know those guys, and all."

"You think you could handle it?"

"Definitely," Ferg replied, his chin firm with resolve. "I'll be back in a couple hours."

Shooting him a grin, Vic rolled herself back over to her own desk. It wasn't until she'd grabbed the edges to pull herself back into place that she spotted the tall shadow lurking inside the doorway between the main office and the Reading Room's antechamber.

Walt leaned one arm against the door frame and waited as Ferg bid Ruby a goodbye and headed out the door, all the while giving Vic a considering look.

"Keep this up and you'll get my job."

"Don't even joke about that," she growled back. "How long were you standing there?"

"Little bit. Heard Branch stomp out. Then I heard Ferg yelling. I didn't get concerned until it got quiet out here."

"So you heard what I told Ferg?"

"About Darius Burns? Yeah. Why, did I miss something?"

"No, nothing else," Vic told him, carefully nonchalant. "Just that we get more questions every time we find an answer."

Nodding, Walt walked forward and tapped a worn set of folded papers on her desk. "That's about the way it's been going. I've spent most of the morning calling everyone on this Casi-No phone list Cady gave me. Left a bunch of messages, but a most of them said they just gave up after the injunction was overturned."

Vic tilted her head. "What injunction?"

Hitching one hip up on Vic's desk, Walt laid the pages down. His handwriting, formed when kids were still taught penmanship at school, was neat and legible. "My wife did some volunteer work after her cancer went into remission. She started with a literacy campaign, then she got roped into the group opposing the casino getting built. They eventually got an injunction from a federal judge against the corporation doing the building."

"Okay," Vic nodded, following him so far. "So when was the injunction overturned?"

"Around January, just after her cancer came back," Walt said quietly. "She tried to get things started up again, but most of the others had dropped out by then. Malachi Strand saw to that."

Vic shot him a quizzical look, and he pursed his mouth in distaste. "Strand was in the pocket of the original developer, Will Dobson. He came in here a few years back, got the whole thing rolling. Gave the Tribal Council and the elders a song and dance about how much money a casino out here would bring in. The tribe ended up putting in several million dollars of investment.

"When some members of the tribe started to object to the casino plan and wanting more input into the whole thing, Strand started leaning on them to keep quiet. It got really bad after the injunction came down. That's actually when the B.I.A. started paying attention to the extortion complaints folks had been making for years."

"Did Strand ever try leaning on your wife?"

"I doubt it," Walt answered seriously, then let out a tiny exhale, not quite a chuckle. "Martha didn't take crap from anyone, not even me. Sweet as honey when she wanted to be, but tough as nails underneath.

"So, anyway, the injunction got overturned, and most people expected the project to start up again. The only problem was, Dobson had decided to hedge his bets and embezzled nearly a million dollars out of the project. He skipped town."

"So then Strand is suddenly on his own…" Vic guessed.

"Exactly," Walt confirmed. "The B.I.A. leveled the extortion charges against him, not that they ever got off their asses to actually go and arrest him."

"So where did Nighthorse come from?"

"Oh, he showed up here a couple of months before you did," Walt told her, the corner of his mouth lifting. "Brought a new casino plan, and his own financing. According to Jacob, he's the man with all the answers."

Leaning back in her chair, Vic frowned. "But he didn't come to Absaroka until after your wife died, did he?"

"No," Walt answered shortly.

"So he never even met her," she continued, reluctant to point it out. "Why do you hate him so much?"

"Because he's a smug son of a bitch who wraps himself up in the whole Cheyenne doctrine and uses it to justify everything he does."

"He's not pure Cheyenne, though. Doesn't he come up short on that blood quantity thing?"

"Blood quantum," Walt corrected. "And no, he doesn't qualify, according to that test. That's what's so irritating. There are folks who've lived here in Absaroka or on the Rez their whole lives, who are a hell of a lot more Cheyenne than he is, but he treats them all like dirt."

"Like Henry?" Vic guessed shrewdly.

"Like Henry," he agreed. "And like Laura Howlingcrane and Rueben Lamebull. They're Cheyenne, even if their pedigree doesn't show it. I'd bet my badge he was behind the idea of the blood quantum in the first place. Once that casino starts operating, it's gonna bring in a ton of money. I haven't seen the contract but I hear he's guaranteed about half the profits."

"That's a lot of cash."

"You betcha. The next thing you know, there's gonna be a Nighthorse Library on the Rez, or a ballpark, or some other damned thing, all bought with his money and wearing his name. He'll be waving that cash around like it can buy him anything he wants."

"Will it buy him into the tribe? That's what he wants, isn't it?"

"Maybe," Walt said. "He's already a provisional member of the tribal council. Who knows where he'll end up in five years."

"Is there any way we can check his financials?"

"Nope. Jacob Nighthorse has filed an official complaint against this department. Unless we show significant reason for suspicion, we won't get a warrant for it."


	9. Chapter 9

**Title: NOT EXACTLY BFF's**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13 for language (c'mon, it's Vic!)**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Takes place after 'Harvest' but veers off before 'Counting Coup.'**

**Author's note: This chapter is short, because the next one will be quite long. Also - #LongLiveLongmire!**

~Chapter 9~

An hour later, Walt heard the sound of boots on the stairs and floorboards out in the foyer. The normal confident stride was subdued, and Walt came out of his office in time to see Branch settling back into his desk.

"Where's Vic?" Branch asked, sounding preoccupied.

"Had a call. Somebody lost a load of two by fours off their truck out on the highway near the rest stop."

Branch nodded. "Ferg go with her?"

Walt gave his erratic deputy a look. Branch was observant enough to notice both vehicles were gone, and should have surmised that two vehicles meant two calls. He just didn't want to actually ask.

"Ferg's running an errand. Where you been?"

"Walking around town," was the only answer he got.

"Good to know you're still able to handle the glad handing," Walt remarked.

Stung, Branch sat up stiffly. "You got something to say, say it."

Inhaling deeply through his nose, Walt strode over to Branch's desk and deliberately paused, putting one hand on his hip. He wanted to be sure the younger man was paying attention and taking this seriously.

"You're young, Branch," he observed, not quite making it an indictment. "You've got a lot to learn, and sometimes those lessons are gonna hurt like a son of a bitch." Walt gestured towards the younger man's torso. "Like that."

"I got shot, Walt."

"And you learned a really hard lesson – that all the charm and good looks and rich daddies in the world couldn't save you one drop of blood or one moment of pain."

There was no good answer to that, and Walt knew it. "Everybody learns about their own mortality, sooner or later. If it hadn't been Ridges, it might have been some drunk on a Saturday night bender. Vic probably got hers in some alley in Philadelphia; I got mine, too. So, the question is, what do you learn from it? It can make you, or it can break you, as a cop. Even more so as a man."

Branch's jaw worked as he listened, his blue eyes dropping to the desk in front of him.

"It's up to you, Branch."

He turned to walk back to his office, but paused when Branch cleared his throat. "What do I do, Walt?"

"About?" he asked. The aftermath of his shooting had left Branch with a number of difficulties, and he wasn't going to assume which one was foremost in the younger man's mind.

Branch swallowed, hard, the words tearing out of his chest almost against his will. "I keep seeing his face. That white make-up, him singing. I can't shake it."

"I expect that peyote he dosed you with didn't help any. You talk to the doc about that?" When Branch shook his head, Walt gave him another look – not of sympathy, but of encouragement. "Maybe you should."

"Would you go?" Branch asked, as if it were a trial or ritual of torment.

He thought for a long moment. "If I hurt someone – someone I cared about – then yes, I would."

"Walt!" Ruby called from the other end of the room, and he turned.

"Yeah?"

"Your daughter's on her way over here to take you to lunch."

He blinked at his receptionist. "Was I supposed to meet her?"

"I'd tell you there's a Post-it on our desk, but you'd know I lied," Ruby told him. "She just called – says she has something she needs to talk to you about."

Arguing wouldn't do him any good, so he grabbed his hat and reached for the swinging half door. "Let me know what you decide," he told Branch, pointing with his hat for emphasis. "David Ridges, alive or dead, isn't worth you obsessing over him. You're alive. Whatever you do, you make sure you stay that way. Understand?"

He waited for Branch to nod hesitantly before donning his hat and tromping down the stairs to the street. As fortune would have it, he had only a few minutes' wait before Cady's Jeep pulled up.

"Hey, Punk," he greeted as he climbed in. "Did we have plans I forgot about?"

"Hey, Dad. No, we didn't, but I need to go talk to Henry."

"Bad news, I'm guessing. Am I backup or just moral support?"

"Both. I subpoena'd Darius Burns' phone records, and I got them back this morning. When I checked on the month Mom died, it shows he was in Connecticut. He didn't have anything to do with Mom's death," Cady told him.

"Oh. Okay," Walt said simply. "So… back to where we started."

"Sorta. Vic's awfully thorough, though. She's trying to get backgrounds on every suspect, or at least as much info as possible on everyone that might be an interested party."

Looking out the window, Walt felt he had to ask the question. "Just how long are you and Vic were gonna keep going with this?"

She threw him a perplexed look while negotiating her way through traffic. "I'd say until either Henry gets an acquittal, or hell freezes over – Why?"

He didn't answer, but scratched his shoulder. The stiches in his arm itched, the phantom pain a reminder of how, just a short time ago, both he and Vic had been reminded of their own mortality. He'd nearly lost her twice in three days – once by violence, standing on a wooden porch with a gun to her head, and then again four nights ago, when she'd handed him an envelope. Seeing her there in his darkened office, only a day after hearing about Sean's demand she quit, his heart had been seized with a similar dread. Reading her report about Branch's problems had been a reprieve, however brief, but not necessarily an absolution; she could still decide to leave Absaroka and him behind.

"Dad." Cady put a touch of warning in her voice. "Talk to me."

"Vic's had a tough week."

"No kidding. Did you know she's still having headaches?"

"She is?"

"Yeah. I tried to get her to go back to the doctor, but she's almost as stubborn as you." Cady stole several glances at her father and his nearly impassive expression. "But that's not what you meant, is it?"

"Not really."

His daughter rolled her eyes and shot him a rueful grin. "How did you ever get Mom to marry you when you can't talk?"

A brief, bittersweet smile crossed his features. "Kinda the point, really. Vic's marriage. Her husband's not too happy about her working for me – wants her to quit. I just didn't want Vic working extra hours on Henry's case to cause her more problems at home."

"Sean?" Cady kept her eyes on the road, unwilling to look at her father now. Apparently Vic still hadn't told her boss about her impending divorce. "I think he's out of town."

"Still?" Walt frowned. "I suppose that's a new twist on giving your spouse the silent treatment."

"Really, what kind of man tells his wife to quit her job?" Cady wondered aloud. "It's the twenty-first century, Dad. Where does he get off telling her what to do?"

"Pretty sure Vic told him where to get off," he commented as they pulled into the parking lot at the Red Pony. "She doesn't put up with much."

"Just like Mom. I knew there was a reason I like her," Cady said with a smile.

Walt hesitated as he reached for the door handle. He hadn't realized it until Cady's comment, but he'd used the same words to describe Vic that he'd used only a few hours ago to describe his late wife. While the two women bore no resemblance to each other in any way, they shared a single trait that resonated deeply within him.

Maybe that's the reason he liked her so much, too.


	10. Chapter 10

**Title: NOT EXACTLY BFF's**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13 for language (c'mon, it's Vic!)**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Takes place after 'Harvest' but veers off before 'Counting Coup.'**

**Author's note: This has a lot of talking and a lot of thinking, so I apologize if it's hard to follow. #LongLiveLongmire!**

~Chapter 10~

"Don't tell me we need to go back to Denver," Henry commented as Walt and Cady came through the door of the Red Pony. "My crew is likely to mutiny."

"No, just needed to talk," Cady told him. Taking her time, she slid up onto one of the barstools and arranged her purse on the floor and her briefcase in her lap. With a final quick breath for courage, she broke the news. "I got confirmation on Darius Burns' whereabouts during the week Mom was killed."

"And?" Henry prompted.

"He was in Connecticut," Walt told him, with all the quick mercy of pulling off a band-aid.

Despite his stony expression, Henry seemed to age five years in that moment. "I see," he said simply.

"I'm not giving up, Henry," Cady assured him. "Vic and I have been working on a strategy to put pressure on their witness. I've sent a request to the prosecutor in Denver to ask for an interview with Jonas Gaitherson."

"Hey, Cady," called a new voice, and the three looked up to see Vic striding in through the swinging wooden doors. "Got your message; what's up?"

It took only a moment to bring Vic up to speed, and she swore more than Walt and Henry combined. "Son of a bitch. That takes him out of our suspect pool."

"Malachi Strand sends him in here now and again to remind me that he wants to buy the Red Pony. Seems to think I need to hire a better defense attorney." Henry shot his goddaughter a thin smile. "I told him mine was fine. I did not tell him that I will burn this bar to the ground before I let him buy it from me."

"You could sell it to someone else," Walt suggested.

Henry gave his oldest friend a long look. "I would not sell to someone I could not trust, and the few I do trust cannot afford it."

"Sign it over as payment to your defense attorney," Vic suggested. "Malachi won't dare mess with Cady, would he?"

"It is a thought."

"We still have a few weeks before the trial," Cady reminded them. "We'll think of something."

"Screw this," Vic declared, and walked around the bar to the chalkboard that hung on the rib between the weathered shelves that housed the Red Pony's stock in trade. Henry had been in the process of writing up the day's specials, but they were swiftly erased by the damp cloth Vic appropriated from Henry's shoulder.

"Hey!" he protested, but Vic paid no attention. She laid the black rectangle on the polished wooden counter that separated herself and Henry from father and daughter.

"Okay – we have Martha Longmire," she stated, writing 'Martha' at the bottom of the board. "She's killed by Miller Beck."

'Beck' was written above Martha, with a line connecting it to hers. Gently, she crossed Martha's name out, then next to it wrote 'Walt.' Above Beck, she wrote 'Henry,' then drew a line down towards Beck.

Above Walt's name, she wrote 'Strand' and 'Burns.' At an angle, she wrote Cady's name, then above that, Ridges.

"So, here's what we've got. Beck kills Martha. Henry allegedly kills Beck." She wrote 'Hector' between Henry and Beck.

We know Hector assaulted Beck, but left him alive. Pretty sure that Ridges killed Hector." She drew a line from Ridges to Hector, where she crossed his name out. "We know Ridges sabotaged Cady's car on election day, probably because Nighthorse put him up to it."

At the top, she wrote 'Nighthorse.'

"So, Strand gets out of prison, starts working for Nighthorse, and Ridges used to work for him, too." She drew lines connecting the two men, then another connecting Nighthorse to Ridges. "Walt, you said Strand was working for the original developer, right? But then what's-is-face skipped town, and here comes Nighthorse. Why would Strand start taking orders from the new guy? And why would Nighthorse even hire this jerk, especially since he's not the police chief any longer?"

Vic circled Nighthorse's name, then tapped the chalk against it thoughtfully. "I wish we had more info on Jacob Nighthorse. Where was he before he came to Wyoming? What is his background? You don't just waltz into town and start working on a multi-million dollar project without having a track history."

"You know the old saying," Walt reminded her. "Follow the money. Which we can't do without a warrant, and we can't get one."

Cady frowned. "Who actually owns the casino?"

"The tribe, as a whole," Henry answered. "Under the guidance of the tribal council."

"So the tribal council controls the money from the casino?" she pressed.

"Thus the whole blood quantum debate."

Vic shifted her weight from one hip to the other. "Who's on the council these days?"

Henry thought about it. "Anita Eaglestar, Jill Littlefox, John Midthunder, George Red Elk, Roland Turner, and Howard Wynema."

"Jacob Nighthorse hasn't weaseled his way on there yet, has he?" Walt asked.

"The blood quantum requirements are still not resolved. As it stands now, no. But once the limit is lowered, he will be eligible. He is one-eighth Cheyenne."

"How close are they to deciding?" Cady asked.

"Anita and Jill have always been against it. Howard has always been for it. George and Roland have changed their minds several times, but that is not unusual. They are very…" Henry searched for the right word. "Political."

"Hmmm," Vic hummed, staring at the board. She scratched at the healing scabs on her right wrist.

"Leave that alone," Cady scolded. Vic stuck out her tongue.

"Do I need to separate you two?" Walt asked.

"What are you thinking?" Henry questioned, ignoring their antics.

"Ridges knew Tug Retton, and Retton connects him with Beck. But Ridges wasn't working for Strand or Burns, right?" She wrote 'Retton' on the board, then connected Ridges to Beck through Retton's name. "And he didn't know Nighthorse at that time."

"So?" Henry prompted.

"So, it's possible Ridges arrange to have Martha killed. But why? Was he working for someone else?"

"That day Jacob and Malachi came into the station," Walt mused, dividing his attention between the board on the bar and his deputy. "He made a comment about me needing to reevaluate my employees, because you're only as good as the people you hire."

"Maybe he wasn't talking about you," Vic said, following his thought.

"What was he talking about, then?" Cady asked, puzzled.

"Maybe he was taking a cheap shot at Strand," Walt offered. "Vic's right – he hired Strand, but Strand has a reputation on the Rez and it's not a good one."

"You mean Jacob might not have had a choice about hiring Strand?" Cady continued, still not understanding. "It's his project – who would be able to tell Nighthorse to hire him?"

"That is a very good question," Henry declared.

"Walt said Malachi Strand was leaning on the folks involved in the Casi-No movement, right?"

Walt nodded, and Vic continued. "Strand didn't do that out of the goodness of his heart."

"Malachi Strand would not spit on you unless there was something in it for him," Henry declared.

"So, the original developer for the casino – Dobson? – must have figured he was screwed after the injunction, so he embezzled a chunk of money and skipped town. But Strand was still running around being a dick, right?"

"Yeah," Walt told her.

"Why?" Vic asked. "Dobson didn't care anymore. Why was Strand still at it?"

"Because someone was telling him to?" Cady suggested, half guessing, but growing confident that she was right. Her eyes locked with Vic's, and they shared a moment of triumph.

Vic agreed. "Someone else is involved in this – someone we don't know, yet."

"Five bucks says it's someone on the tribal council," Walt said.

"No odds," Henry replied flatly.

"You really think my wife's murder had to do with this casino getting built?" Walt asked Vic, his voice carefully neutral.

Vic shifted her weight, but did not back down. "Sorry, but yeah, I do. Like Henry said, Malachi Strand wouldn't spit on someone if there wasn't something in it for him. Burns works for Strand. But Nighthorse is connected to Ridges, and Hector too."

"How is Hector connected to Nighthorse?" Cady asked.

"We arrested Hector once," Walt clarified. "He called Nighthorse to bail him out. It's possible Jacob knew who else Hector was doing favors for."

"As much as I'd love to nail that ass-hat Nighthorse, the timing still bothers me," Vic mused. "Nighthorse didn't get here until after Martha died. I can see him coordinating the clean-up on Miller Beck. But if he wasn't even in the state until after Martha died, it's kinda hard to hang a conspiracy charge on him."

"Then we need to find out who else was involved," Cady declared, her eyes shining.

"You are talking about some serious allegations against the Cheyenne Tribal Council," Henry warned. "That is not something to do lightly. They are all highly respected members of the tribe. The backlash could have serious repercussions to you all, both socially and politically."

"You going to prison would kinda suck, too," Vic pointed out. "I'm not saying we kick down their doors. But it wouldn't hurt to take a look at who's been cozy with Strand and Nighthorse."

"The entire council is cozy with Nighthorse," he responded dryly. "They have several million dollars of tribal money tied up in the casino. Considering how much Jacob wants to be on the council as well, I expect he takes every opportunity he has to socialize with them."

"Then we need to find out who was also hanging out with your buddy Malachi, before he got arrested. Someone was letting him get away with shit, and probably pulling strings to keep the BIA from getting too nosy."

"Is that true?" Cady asked. "I was in Seattle, but I heard some stuff from Mom, about you and Henry having to go arrest Strand on the Rez when the BIA wouldn't do it?"

"We did," Walt said, dismissing its significance, which prompted Henry to roll his eyes.

Looking between the two of them, Vic's lip curled. "The two of you waltzed onto the Rez and arrested the chief of police in his own backyard? No wonder Mathias is still pissed. That took some serious balls."

"Rather a lack of brains, I think," Henry clarified. "I am still not sure how you managed to talk me into that."

"Me? I thought that was your idea," Walt returned, the corner of his mouth lifting in a wry grin.

"All right, so our next step is to figure out who else was pals with Malachi Strand when the original casino deal went tits up. Henry, can you find that out?"

The man nodded, and Vic turned to Cady. "Is there any way you can find out about the original injunction that stopped the casino? Would that be at the courthouse?"

"It might be, but there were some papers in Mom's boxes that I can go through again, now that I know what to look for."

"And I heard you say you were getting an interview with that Gaitherson witness?"

"Yep. I put the request in to the Denver prosecutor's office yesterday."

"You sure that's a good idea, Punk?"

"It's perfectly legal for the defense counsel to interview the prosecution's witness," Cady replied.

"They're not required to cooperate," Vic added, "but it doesn't look good to a jury if the prosecution doesn't play nice. And any pressure we can put on that guy is good. He's not exactly a model citizen, and if Cady can get any more information from him on how he knew Miller Beck and maybe Tug Retton, it could help Henry's case."

"Just don't give away our defense strategy," Walt advised her.

"We do not have a defense strategy," Henry emphasized bleakly.

"They don't know that," Cady replied with a poker player's smile. "And we're gonna play this one right down to the last second if we have to."


	11. Chapter 11

**Title: NOT EXACTLY BFF's**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13 for language (c'mon, it's Vic!)**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Takes place after 'Harvest' but veers off before 'Counting Coup.'**

**Author's note: #LongLiveLongmire!**

~Chapter 11~

Walt bummed a ride back to the station with Vic, carrying their lunch in two brown paper bags and the heavy burden of his own thoughts. Vic was similarly preoccupied, and the trip was made in near silence.

Once upstairs, Ruby intercepted Walt with a yellow square of paper. "You had a phone call while you were out. A gentleman named Daniel Rosky – said he was returning your phone call."

"Rosky?" Vic echoed. "Isn't that the guy you put away for killing a game warden last year?"

"That was Lee Rosky. I called his wife Bonnie this morning, left a message. Daniel is probably their son."

"Wow," Vic drawled. "That ought to be a fun conversation. Sucks to be you."

"I coulda let Branch have my job," Walt reminded her. "Then it would be his problem."

Vic glanced at the man slouched in his chair at the far end of the room, staring out the window. "Nah. This works for me." She took one of the bags from him and made her way to the desk, deliberately making enough racket to stir Branch from his reverie.

"I think you've got that brooding cowboy thing down, so give it a rest." she told him as she emptied her lunch onto her desk. "You eat today?"

"Not hungry," Branch told her, his voice rasping.

"Too bad." Vic unwrapped her burger and tore it in half. "Here. Eat." She gave him the half still wrapped in white paper, and used the paper bag it came in as an impromptu plate. "You don't get any of my fries, though."

Sitting up, Branch gave the rough half-circle of meat, cheese and bread a dubious once-over, then drew it toward him. Vic's expression told him she'd probably shove it down his throat if he didn't eat it voluntarily. Rather than test her, he took a bite and chewed slowly.

"Hey, guys!" Ferg's face was bright with excitement as he came into the office, shedding his jacket on the coat rack as he made his way to Vic's desk.

"Where you been?" Branch asked.

"Cumberland county," Ferg answered, not sure that he had any need to know.

"Hope you had lunch, you're not getting my other half," Vic told him, taking a mouthful of her burger.

"Um – no, I ate over there. You won't believe what I found out."

Shoving another bite in her mouth and chewing furiously, Vic swiveled her chair to give Ferg her full attention.

"Wha?" she urged around the mouthful, giving him a 'hurry up' signal.

"Hector had only one visitor in the time he spent over there in their jail. A guy claiming to be his cousin came to see him the day he escaped."

"No other visitors?" she managed as she chewed.

"No – but get this," Ferg continued, pride evident in every line of his body. "He signed in as Virgil White Buffalo, but I'd taken a picture of Darius Burns with me. When I showed it to the guys, they said that was him."

"Seriously?"

"Yep. Hector didn't receive any phone calls, or make any. Burns was the only visitor."

Branch sat up, interested despite himself. "Why would Burns visit Hector? Burns works for Malachi Strand. He and Hector never had much use for each other."

"Yeah, people on the Rez used to hire Hector to do what Strand wouldn't," Vic observed, thinking of the woman who'd asked her and Cady to stop looking for the ex-boxer.

"So get this – about an hour after Burns talked to Hector, Hector starts telling the guards he wants out. Said his time was up. He got rowdy, and they tried to calm him down, but then they opened the jail cell and tried to taser him."

"Why didn't someone call Walt? Hector was his prisoner."

"I asked; nobody really had a good answer to that."

"You mean they were trying to out-tough a tough guy," Vic said scornfully, "and they screwed the pooch trying to subdue him."

"Burns must have said something," Branch speculated. "Wonder what he had on Hector that could have made him want out so bad."

"Hector had several federal warrants," Vic remembered, picking up the remnant of her burger. "Maybe Burns and Malachi were threatening to get the feds to come get him if he said anything about his deal with Henry and Miller Beck."

Ferg frowned. "That would mean that Malachi and Burns had to have known what Hector did to Miller Beck."

"Sounds like a big conspiracy theory," drawled Branch. "But all you have is theory."

"Yeah, and Burns misrepresenting his identity to the Cumberland County folks isn't worth arresting him. But Cady got his phone records earlier today – let's see who all he's been calling lately."

"Sounds like a good idea," Walt said from the doorway, where he'd heard most of the previous conversation. "Maybe you'll have more luck than I just did with Daniel Rosky."

"Who's that?" Ferg asked.

"Bonnie Rosky's son. She and Martha were friends through their chemo treatment, and they were both involved in the Casi-No efforts."

"So did Bonnie have anything to say?" Vic queried, wolfing down the last of her lunch.

"Not really," Walt told her. "She died about three weeks ago."

"Ouch," Ferg said, wincing in sympathy.

"Yeah, he wasn't too pleased to hear from me. Said he didn't know a thing about what his mother had been doing two years ago. Then he got a little rude."

"Okay, sounds like we need a personal touch. Cady and I can go over there later, maybe get a little more out of him in person," Vic offered. "Got the address?"

"It's in my office," Walt told her, waving vaguely that direction.

"I'd tell you to text it to me, but, gee, you don't have a phone."


	12. Chapter 12

**Title: NOT EXACTLY BFF's**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13 for language (c'mon, it's Vic!)**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Takes place after 'Harvest' but veers off before 'Counting Coup.'**

**Author's note: Yeah, okay, some of this was inspired by the season finale. (Not last episode. There will be more! #LongLiveLongmire!** **) "Seriously, this is the best thing that's happened to me all week." One of the best Vic lines ever – just not applicable to this chapter.**

~Chapter 12~

Between a car accident that took up most of Vic's afternoon and Cady's own work schedule, neither she nor Vic were able to get free until well into the next day. Cady joined Vic at the station, and together the two of them rode out to the address Walt provided for the Rosky household. As they drove, Cady filled her in on what her research had uncovered.

"Originally, the casino project was supposed to be done within a year and a half," Cady explained. "But a group of Cheyenne began objecting to some of the plans, and they joined forces with some concerned parents, ministers, and other people in the county and tried to get the project shut down entirely. They couldn't get it halted on civic grounds, since it was approved by the Tribal Council, so they ended up getting an injunction against the casino builder because he wasn't following all the zoning and permit processes required for such a large project. You know, wastewater, runoff, parking, traffic considerations, all that."

"Permits? Really? Sounds like a bullshit paperwork runaround."

"Yeah, and it worked for a while, but eventually a federal judge overturned the injunction because the casino is being built on tribal land."

"Why does that matter?"

"The Rez is sovereign territory."

"What?" Vic shot Cady a confused look. "Then why did they all get to vote for Walt?"

"It's complicated. The Rez is technically part of the county. Tribal members on the Rez are all U.S. citizens, and they're allowed to vote in elections, all that jazz, but the land itself is governed by the Cheyenne."

"Like dual citizenship," Vic threw out.

The dimple at the corner of Cady's cheek deepened as she suppressed a smile. "Something like that. But the construction site doesn't fall under the county's purview, so the injunction was overturned."

"Gotcha."

As they turned off the county highway onto the less traveled road that led to their destination, Cady turned sideways in the seat. "So… can I ask you something?"

"Sure," Vic replied absently, looking at the mailbox numbers.

"When are you going to tell my Dad that you're getting divorced?"

Vic calculated in her head. "In about 25 days."

"You're gonna wait until everything's final?"

"Yep."

"Why?"

"Because," Vic sighed. "Walt feels guilty enough about Sean and me. I don't need to make it any worse."

"Why would my dad feel guilty? Did you two…" Cady trailed off, not sure exactly how to ask a woman if she was having an affair with her boss, who just happened to be Cady's father.

"No! Hell, no! It's just - I work a lot of hours, you know? And then I got hurt by one of Walt's suspects when I wasn't even on the job. I think Walt feels like Sean blames him for all that. But there's nothing going on between me and your Dad."

"Okay." Cady held one hand up in surrender. It was obvious her questions were making her companion uncomfortable, although she wasn't sure why. "It's just that I know my Dad cares about you. You've been a good influence on him. And I figured maybe Sean thought there was something going on there."

Vic glanced over her sunglasses at Cady. "Did you notice the date on those papers? He went to a lawyer weeks ago." She shook her head in resignation as she slowed the truck. "Sean and I fought about a lot of things, but my job was in the top five since before we even got married. I don't know, maybe this was his idea of giving me an ultimatum. Him or the job."

"What, he expected you to go running after him or something?"

Vic spotted the address on the mailbox and more importantly the cement building stating 'Rosky's Taxidermy' on a sign hanging over the door. She pulled into the wide, dusty parking area and threw the transmission into park. "If he did, he really didn't know me at all."

The two women walked around the side of the outbuilding, noting the closed sign on the door and the shards of bark and other debris littering the sidewalk. The yard was unkempt and the other barn on the property looks as though it were ready to collapse.

"This could be awkward," Cady said as they walked toward the front door of the modest house.

"Ya think?"

Cady knocked politely on the door. A few moments passed before a man, probably a few years younger that Vic, opened it. He looked hollow-eyed and haunted, and his expression was one of thinning patience.

"Yes?"

"Daniel Rosky? Hi. I'm Cady Longmire, and I'd like to ask you a…"

The door was abruptly shut in her face.

Cady stared at the wooden barrier for a moment before turning towards Vic. The deputy flashed a feral grin, placed her sunglasses in the neck of her shirt, and moved forward. The heel of her hand hit the door in just the right place to make it a sounding board. The loud wham!-wham!-wham! echoed back from the rest of the house.

"What the hell!" barked Rosky as he threw the door open once more. "You've got a lot of damned nerve, lady! I don't want to talk to you!"

Vic shoved her tactical boot into the open bottom edge of the door. "We're investigating a murder, Mr. Rosky," she said with a polite smile tinged with shark. "Your cooperation would be greatly appreciated."

"My mother died of cancer," he said. "She wasn't murdered."

"Well, my mother _was_ murdered," Cady said in steely tones. "So maybe you can spare me five minutes of your time?"

He looked as though he'd rather have a prostate exam. "You've got three," he shot back.

Cady tilted her head, her back straightening with determination. "Our mothers were working together on the opposition to the new casino being built on the Cheyenne Reservation. I was hoping you still had some of her papers, and could see your way clear to allowing me to look at them."

Daniel Rosky made a disgusted noise, but shouldered past the two women and walked the short distance to the single car garage. The hinged panels made a horrific rattle as he pulled the door up and open.

"You want my mother's stuff? Here." He tossed out a bag of something that, through the white plastic, appeared to be clothing. "Here." A cardboard box full of old pots and pans was chucked towards Cady, and the contents fell out with a clatter. "HERE!" He stood and kicked over a plastic trash can, the lid falling off and spilling out dozens of folders, papers, and other mementos.

"My dad went to prison because of your dad, _Miz_ Longmire. They put him on suicide watch last month after my mom died. So forgive me for not being all that concerned about your problems!"

With that, he stormed back through the garage into the house, slamming the door behind him.

Vic surveyed the mess spread over the driveway. "I knew I'd get to go dumpster diving sooner or later." With a sigh, she started to pack the pans back into the boxes.

"I don't want to pick this up," Cady stated, even as she stooped over to corral two saucepan lids. "Nobody gave me a free pass to be an asshole, why should he get one?"

"Because if we leave a mess, he'll feel vindicated and self-righteous," Vic told her. "But if we clean up his mess, he'll feel guilty and miserable for _days_."

Cady gave her a dubious look.

"Trust me – I have four brothers and an almost ex-husband. That's how it works. Of course, it helps if you're there to rub it in…"

A few minutes of work had most of the mess cleaned up, and the two women turned their attention to the papers spilling out of the square plastic trashcan, mercifully free of any kitchen waste or other microbiology.

"There's a lot of medical paperwork here, but I'm finding a few pieces on the casino," Cady mentioned. "Unfortunately, it doesn't look that different from what my Mom had."

Vic hauled another handful of papers out of the barrel. "Birthday cards, get well cards… why do people keep this crap?"

"They're sentimental. You should try it some time."

"Collecting shit is not sentimental. It just takes up space. No one ever looks at them again."

"I still have every birthday card my mother ever gave me," Cady told her absently as she read. "It meant a lot to me after she died."

Unable to argue with that, Vic shrugged and dug out another handful of papers.

"Oooh, hey," Cady said, holding up an old folder, full of cards and notes. "Here's a card from my mother to Bonnie. But check this out: 'Bonnie – so glad to hear you don't need more chemo at this time, even though I'll miss my carpooling buddy! Maybe when we're both feeling better, we can get the gang back together. I still have hope that we can get that casino shut down.' It's dated about a week before my Mom died."

"That's it?" Vic asked skeptically.

"Yeah, but there's some other writing here on the envelope – I think it's Bonnie's. It just says 'Eastland' and 'FL.' Florida? Maybe Mom and Bonnie talked about it – over the phone or something – and she wrote this down?"

"Could be. We can look it up."

Cady added that card to a pile to take with her, and they continued to sort through the box. Nothing else relevant surfaced, and reluctantly the two began packing it all back into the dumpster.

"Why don't you grab those," Vic told her cohort, indicating the small pile of worthwhile gleanings. "I'll take care of this." She grabbed the last box of rejected paperwork and hefted it towards the trash barrel, perhaps with a bit more reverence for the dead woman's legacy than she might have previously.

A sudden inhale of breath was all the warning Vic got, and she turned quickly as she caught Cady's eyes widening in alarm. The box full of papers hampered her attempt to block the fist that came flying towards her. It smashed into her face and knocked her to the cement of the drive.

David Ridges stepped past Vic's prone form and grabbed Cady by the shoulders, throwing her against the outer wall of the garage where it joined the house. Papers few from her hands and she let out a cry of pain when the rough wooden shingles dug into her back.

"You should leave Henry Standing Bear to his fate," he ordered her, his voice melodic and calm. His hands tightened mercilessly on Cady's upper arms, causing her to cry out again. "Stop this now, or you will end up just like your mother."

"Screw you!" Cady told him, pushing, struggling against his grip.

He slammed her against the wall again. "I can find you anywhere in this town, pretty girl," he told her. "I know where you work. I know where you live." His fingers loosened their grip and threaded through the wealth of her red hair. "So pretty… I'd hate to have to rip it off your skull."

"_Motherfucker_!"

Vic's shoulder was a tan blur as she caught him in the ribs, lifting him up and away from Cady with a flying tackle. The two bodies landed in the grass, rolling and struggling, Vic's cursing floating out between grunts of effort and pain as they traded blows.

Staring in momentary panic, Cady forced her shaking hands to reach for her pocket, grabbing her phone and dialing as she scanned the garage for something, anything, to use as a weapon.

"Sheriff's office," answered the tinny voice on the phone.

Cady spotted a baseball bat as she shouted, "Ruby! Get my Dad! Ridges is here!" Dropping the phone, she grabbed the bat and chased after the pair twisting across the yard.

In the moments it had taken her to find the bat, Ridges had managed to leverage his heavier frame over Vic's. His left knee had landed in the grass near her hip, and she desperately squirmed, trying to force her hand past his wiry thigh to get to her gun. With his weight balanced on her belly, he kept her pinned to the ground and wrapped both hands around her throat. His aquiline features creased into a smile as he enjoyed watching her face turn red.

As she choked and gasped for air, Vic's free hand skidded up his shoulder, her fingers reaching for his eye socket. Ridges wrenched his head back, keeping his eyes safe, so she settled for a handful of his long, flowing black hair and gave it a brutal yank. He let out a hiss, which turned into an unintelligible grunt as Cady's bat hit him across the shoulder.

It was enough to make him lose his balance, his knee coming off the ground on Vic's right side. Years of training and generations of instinct dictated the rest. Cady never even saw her draw; the gun was simply in Vic's hand and coming up, firing as it rose.

The first bullet hit him in the side, tearing through the outer edge of his chest under his arm. His own survival instinct had him twist and dodge as she jack-knifed her upper body off the ground and squeezed off several more rounds. At least one caught him in the bicep and he threw himself backwards, lashing out with his foot.

The heavy boot caught Vic across the temple, snapping her head to the side. She kept a desperate grip on her gun as her vision swam with the stunning force of the blow. The fleeting interruption gave Ridges enough time to roll to his feet and make a break for it. He ran, far faster than a man with two bullets in him should have been able to, as Vic forced herself back up and fired again. His damnable instinct had him dodge once more, and the concrete wall behind him threw out chips when her last shots missed.

He darted around the end of the outbuilding and disappeared. Moments later, Cady caught sight of a mustard-yellow car sending up rooster tails of dust as it sped out of sight.

"What the hell?" came a voice, and Cady looked over to see Daniel Rosky standing in the doorway to his house once more, the heavy door prudently between himself and the outside.

Vic drew a shuddering breath and coughed as she tried to breathe. "FUCK!" she said emphatically, flopping backwards to lie flat on the grass.

"Get me a towel!" Cady shouted at Rosky before falling to her knees at Vic's side. "Are you okay?" She was appalled at Vic's face. Blood ran freely from a split lip and her nose, and was seeping from the abrasion on her temple where Ridges' boot had caught her.

"I'b find," Vic panted, holstering her weapon and coughing again. Slowly, gingerly, she rolled to one side to keep the blood from running up her nose.

"You look great," Cady agreed with no little amount of sarcasm. That earned her an eye roll, and the two waited for Vic to catch her breath.

In the distance, the rising and falling pitch of a siren could be heard.

"Shi-heg call dine-wud-wud?"

"No, I called the office," Cady said, after translating Vic's question in her head. "Ruby must have sent an ambulance."

"Gread," Vic grumbled, trying to sit up. She reeled forward immediately. "Whoa," she moaned. "Thing I'b gonna be sick."

"Stay still," Cady ordered, and Vic needed little more convincing as she let her head hang down, blood still dripping from her nose.


	13. Chapter 13

**Title: NOT EXACTLY BFF's**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13 for language (c'mon, it's Vic!)**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Takes place after 'Harvest' but veers off before 'Counting Coup.'**

**Author's note: #LongLiveLongmire!**

~Chapter 13~

Walt Longmire was no more than two minutes behind the ambulance when he arrived at the Rosky property. The Bullet's siren let out one last bleat as he flicked it off, but he left the lights flashing and pulled directly into the yard beside the ambulance.

"Cady! Vic!" he bellowed, headed for the knot of activity in the driveway. Branch piled out after him, following just a few steps behind.

"Dad!" called Cady, intercepting his charge towards the group. "I'm okay," she assured him, wincing when her father's hands found the same place on her arms where Ridges had left bruises. "Vic's the one who's hurt."

She led him towards the open garage, where he found Vic sitting on an upturned insulated cooler, two EMT's fussing over his deputy, and a man he assumed was Daniel Rosky since he gave Walt a dirty look before disappearing back into the house.

"What the hell happened?" he demanded. "Ruby said you called, and then she heard shots."

"Mr. Rosky let us go through his mother's papers," Cady explained, indicating the rumpled sheets she'd once more rounded up. "We were almost done when David Ridges showed up. He must have parked on the far side of the building and snuck up beside the house, I guess. He ambushed Vic, then he grabbed me."

"You okay?" Branch asked her. When she glanced at him, his entire body was poised for action, nearly quivering with adrenaline, but the concern was genuine.

"Yeah, but I'm worried about Vic. She's refusing to go to the hospital."

"I don't need to go to the hospital," Vic insisted, wiping her nose once more and examining the red smear left on the previously white paper towel. "See? Barely any blood now. I'm fine." More dribbles of red ran down the front of her uniform, now unbuttoned, and the beige tank top beneath it was liberally spattered as well.

"Your blood pressure is a little low, and you sustained some head trauma," interrupted the medical tech at her side. He was younger, and handsome without being obnoxious about it. He unhooked the stethoscope from his ears and pulled the blood pressure cuff off her arm with a rip of Velcro. "And your friend here says you had a concussion about a week ago?"

"Tattletale," Vic muttered. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine," Cady argued. "You nearly threw up, and you nearly passed out."

"I got a little dizzy," Vic denied. She would have said more, but the other tech, a woman several years older than her partner, had taken a firm grip on Vic's chin to tilt her head and was flashing a small light in her eyes while she judged the pupil reaction time.

"Little sluggish," she announced, then touched the livid marks on Vic's neck. "Any trouble breathing? Swallow for me."

"No. Ahh!" she added as she obeyed and forced her bruised throat to constrict.

At Vic's pained outcry, Cady caught the flicker in her father's normally stoic expression. Glancing between him and Vic, Cady decided to keep her mouth shut and her thoughts to herself. Whatever her father had said about Vic working out her marriage issues with her husband, she could see his concern. He would have denied it was any different than his concern for Branch or Ferg, if they were in the same situation, but she knew him better than that.

"If Ridges was here, why didn't you just shoot him?" Branch interrupted.

"One," Vic growled, holding up her index finger, "hostage. He had Cady too close to him; a bullet could have gone right through his skinny ass and hit her. Two," she added another finger, "I DID shoot him. _Twice_," she added, thrusting both fingers in the air in emphasis. A moment later her index finger went down, and she flipped her middle finger at him with additional vigor, just in case he didn't understand Italian gestures. She let out another gasp while the EMT palpated her ribs in search of more damage.

"All right," Walt declared loudly, his tone making it clear he was taking control of the situation. "Branch, you stay here with Cady. Get whatever it is she found in Vic's truck and be sure it's locked up. Get a statement from Mr. Rosky. Take a sample of that blood there in the grass, then get it over to the hospital to get it tested to confirm David Ridges is alive.

"I'll call Ferg and have him check the hospital and the Rez clinic to see if Ridges shows up there. Vic, give Branch your keys and your weapon. He'll process things here and get your gun back to the station."

"What?" Vic protested, but Walt cut her off.

"You have three options. You can ride in the ambulance to the hospital, you can walk to my truck and I'll drive you to the hospital, or I can throw you over my shoulder and carry you to my truck and we'll go to the hospital. Any questions?"

Cady turned away from her father and his fuming deputy – it wouldn't do for him to catch her smiling. When she glanced at Branch, however, he had tucked his thumbs into his belt and assumed a patient look on his face that spoke as eloquently as any Moretti eye roll. She had the feeling she wasn't the only one who'd noticed that, no matter how much each denied it, Vic Moretti and Walt Longmire had more than a strictly professional relationship going on.

Having finally surrendered to the overwhelming odds, Vic drew her weapon, popped the magazine, and racked the slide to remove the last round. She handed it to Branch with little grace.

"Happy now?" she asked Walt, wiping her nose once more.

"Not particularly," he replied, holding out one hand.

Taking it, she let him pull her to her feet and headed towards the Bullet. She made it all of two steps before her knees wilted. Fortunately Walt and the EMT's were watching closely, and between the three of them they caught her before she hit the ground again.

"C'mon, slugger," said the male EMT, slinging one of Vic's arms around his neck. Walt took her other arm, supporting her elbow with his right hand, his left hand looped firmly in the back of her belt.

"Wait – Branch!" she called. "Forget the blood swabs. Here."

Pulling her arm from around the EMT's neck, she fished in her left breast pocket and withdrew a hearty pinch of black silk. When he came closer, he could see dozens of long black hairs between her fingertips, many with little flakes of skin still attached.

"Fucker's missing a bunch of hair," she told him. "Hope it hurt."

Branch transferred the black strands to a plastic bag and sealed it up while the trio resumed their journey to the Bullet.

"She single?" asked the woman EMT. "I think Jerry likes her."

"Not yet," Branch answered.

"Too bad," she replied, packing up the last of her gear and snapping the plastic cases shut. "He needs a girlfriend something fierce."

As the woman walked away, Cady shot Branch an incredulous look.

He gave her a lop-sided smirk in response, absently pocketing the evidence bag. "It's a small town, Cady. Leanne Winslow over at the courthouse called me the day Vic turned in her divorce papers, wanting to know if Vic had quit her job. Seems that idiot brother of hers wants to be a deputy."

"Miles Winslow is a complete douchebag," Cady reminded him. "And technically, that's a violation of confidentiality."

"You're starting to sound like Vic," he replied. "And yeah, Leanne's a blabbermouth. You could make a complaint, but it wouldn't do you much good. Most of the county jobs are short on pay and long on nepotism."

"Tell me about it," she agreed. "I work with those people all the time. Vic had it right – politics are the same no matter where you are."

Branch nodded, his gaze bouncing over the yard, the house, the stacked boxes in the garage that held the accumulated wreckage of the Roskys' lives. He knew their history – a happy, loving couple whose life together had been derailed by misfortune and desperate circumstances, resulting in a ruin of broken dreams and would end with each of them dying separate and alone. Trying not to read too much into it, he forced his attention back to the woman before him, only to find her staring at the neglected house, lost in thought as well.

"You really okay?" he asked. He reached out to tuck back the disheveled strands of auburn over Cady shoulders, but she flinched when his hand came near her neck.

"Fine," she repeated tightly, and he dropped his hand. He might have dismissed her reaction, until she rubbed her throat, and the guilt hit him once more as he remembered trying to choke her after waking from a nightmare of his shooting.

"I'm just…gonna go put these in the truck," Cady said, breaking the awkward silence. She wrapped her arms around herself and the papers from Bonnie Rosky's legacy. Branch grimaced and kept his gaze on the house, refusing to watch her walk away from him yet again.

The hallways at Durant Memorial hospital were nearly all identical, and Walt had had sufficient experience with the place to attest to that fact. Slouching near the door of the room they'd taken Vic into, he kept his pacing to a minimum, moving out of the way as this person and that came and went. He even managed to stay at his self-appointed guard post when they took Vic over to the X-ray room, merely giving her a nod of encouragement as the entourage of patient, wheelchair, and attendants passed by him. The truculent expression she wore when they wheeled her back into her room was more reassuring than any smile from her could have been.

Eventually, the sandy-haired Doctor Weston came out into the hall, his aluminum clipboard held across his chest like a shield.

"Sheriff," he greeted the taller man.

"Doc," Walt answered back, then cleared his throat, realizing they sounded like an old Gunsmoke rerun. "How's Vic?"

"My nurses wanted to call in Family Services. They thought your deputy was being abused by her husband."

"Uh, no – he's not even in town. She tangled with a murder suspect this afternoon."

Weston gave him a long look, his disapproval and disappointment on par with a high school principal. "Sheriff, Deputy Morretti was in here just a week ago with a grade two concussion. I distinctly remember telling her to get some rest and not to go back to work until she was feeling better."

"I told her that, too," Walt said, trying not to sound defensive. "She said she was better."

"My idea of 'better' involved a week of rest, then a week of light duty. It did not include getting into a brawl with a man half again her size, and it definitely didn't include getting kicked in the head."

"Hey," interrupted another voice, and the two men turned to see Cady scurrying around the corner, Branch at her side. "Is she all right?"

Weston glanced at the two newcomers. While hesitant to release personal information, he was also fully aware of the ties between his patient and the people here in the hall. 'To hell with the HIPPA rules,' he thought, and answered the question.

"She doesn't appear to have another concussion, but this didn't help her any. She needs to rest for at least 24 hours – no calls, no TV, no reading. Definitely no fistfights," he added pointedly, sending a mild glare in Walt's direction.

Walt attempted a faint grin. "I'll do my best, but I can't make any promises."

Doctor Weston's expression did not lift at the attempted joke. "If I thought it would do any good, I'd have her admitted for observation, but frankly she'll get more rest at home. I might even have made a joke about handcuffing her to her bed, but considering she's barely healed from her last round of incarceration, perhaps that would be in poor taste. However, she does need supervision, and rest. You said her husband is out of town?"

"Yes," Cady answered quickly, shooting Branch a significant glance. "But I can take her home. There's no reason I can't work at her place as well as I can at mine."

"We should probably call Sean anyway," Walt decided. He looked to the doctor for confirmation, but Weston raised one hand in rebuttal of his further involvement, glanced at his watch, and walked off.

"No, we shouldn't," Cady argued. "They're not talking right now… just let me take her home, and she can call him when she feels like it."

"The man has a right to know his wife is hurt," he insisted. "Maybe he'll do the right thing and come home instead of sulking."

"Dad," Cady said stridently, then bit her lip and changed her mind about what she meant to say. "Dad, you know how Sean feels about her job. You know Vic, too. This will just add fuel to the fire, and Vic doesn't need any more drama today."

Walt looked away, then at the remaining male for backup.

"Don't ask me," Branch denied. "I'd want to know, but then again I wouldn't have been stupid enough to try and tell Vic to do anything." He scratched the corner of his mouth, having put two and two together. "Seems to me the man's already made up his mind."

"About?"

"Not everybody's marriage makes it to the 'death do we part' bit, Walt," he pointed out, ignoring the way Cady's expression was telegraphing a distinct order to shut the hell up. "Man leaves his wife, after what they went through? He's either a cold-hearted son of a bitch, or he's running away instead than dealing with it. Either way, it's not what a real man would do."

"So you're saying a real man would deal with his issues, not just ignore them," Cady challenged, a spark of fire in her eye.

"That's what I'm saying," Branch affirmed.

Her expression turned speculative, her auburn eyebrows going up in question, but Branch didn't say anything further. Walt had the distinct impression he was being excluded from some conversation, but decided to leave it alone.

"All right," he acquiesced. "Cady, you take care of Vic. Branch, you and I are gonna go have a talk with Jacob Nighthorse."


	14. Chapter 14

**Title: NOT EXACTLY BFF's**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13 for language (c'mon, it's Vic!)**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Takes place after 'Harvest' but veers off before 'Counting Coup.'**

**Author's note: Another favorite Vic line - "Sometimes the way your husband chews his oatmeal is motive enough." #LongLiveLongmire!**

~Chapter 14~

"Ruby, I'm gonna need two arrest warrants," Walt declared the moment he returned to the station.

At her desk, the stalwart receptionist pulled her ever-present block of post-its towards her and grabbed a pen. "Who're they for?"

"Jacob Nighthorse and David Ridges," he replied as he hung up his hat and headed for his office. Branch did the same, the two of them moving in sync for the first time in months.

Ferg stood up nervously. "I did what you said - called the clinic over at the Rez, and the hospital, and the nearest drugstores around, but nobody's seen anybody come in with a gunshot wound. So… is Ridges really still alive?"

Walt paused long enough to answer. "He's alive, alright. He just attacked Vic and Cady over at the Rosky place and put Vic in the hospital."

"Is Cady okay?"

Branch gave him a look, remembering that Ferg had harbored a secret, unrequited crush on Cady for a very long time. "Cady's fine," he reassured his fellow deputy. "Vic got beat up a bit, but she's more pissed than anything."

"So, why are we arresting Nighthorse?"

"Aiding and abetting, for starters," Walt answered, having come back out of his office with the files he had on Nighthorse and the open case on Hector White Buffalo's murder. "He helped Ridges fake a suicide, so we can add making a false statement. There's a half-dozen things I'd like to pin on him, but I can't prove much more than this."

He looked at Ferg again, as if registering his presence for the first time. "Aren't you supposed to be off today?"

"Yeah," Ferg answered with a diffident shrug. "But I figured you all could use the help."

"You're not wrong," Walt replied. "Appreciate it." His words had been simple and unadorned, but Ferg's sturdy shoulders squared with the acknowledgement of his contribution.

"You really figure Nighthorse or Ridges had something to do with your wife's death?" Branch asked. "I thought you ruled them out?"

"Nighthorse is in this up to his hundred dollar haircut. If the timing wasn't off, he'd be in my jail already."

"Right," Ferg agreed, nodding. "If we could prove he knew Malachi Strand or Ridges before your wife was killed, it wouldn't be hard to connect him to what happened in Denver."

Branch scratched his lip, frowning. "You're sure Nighthorse didn't show up here until afterwards?"

"Cady looked it up. That injunction was lifted February, and Malachi Strand was convicted in March. Martha died in late May." Walt shook his head minutely, his frustration evident. "But the Tribal Council didn't make that deal with Nighthorse until August or September, and construction didn't start up again for another month or so after that."

Branch didn't answer. Instead, his head tilted back on his neck, his eyes lost in some faraway contemplation. A moment later his head rolled towards Ferg, pinning him with a thoughtful look.

"What?" Ferg asked self-consciously.

"Ferg, my dad and yours are in the same business."

"Yeah," Ferg scoffed. "Your father's the biggest developer in the county. He could buy my dad out with his pocket change."

"Maybe. But we both know that it takes a while for them to work out deals, right?"

"Right."

"The bigger the job, the longer it takes to nail down the details. And nobody talks about a big job until all the paperwork is signed."

Ferg nodded in agreement, and then his nodding ceased as he caught Branch's point, and his eyes grew wide. "A deal that big – it would be a lot of negotiating."

"What are you saying?" Walt asked, having also followed their train of thought. "You think Nighthorse could have been here in Absaroka earlier than we thought?"

"That's a multi-million dollar project, Walt. I heard Jacob brought in a truckload of his own financing as well. There's no way someone like him would have committed that kind of money unless he was sure it would pay off, and it probably took months to negotiate that agreement."

"Once that first developer took off with the cash he stole, the tribal council would have been desperate to find a way to get their money out of that project," Ferg added, with the experience of watching his father's business hit more than a few cash-strapped moments.

"So Nighthorse either hears about the injunction getting lifted, or more likely, someone on the Tribal Council called him in," Branch speculated. "Either way, he slips into town to start negotiations. He gets up to speed on the project so far, including any problems they've been having – like that injunction."

"The injunction was overturned by then," Ferg reminded them. "Would it matter anymore?"

"It still matters, somehow," Walt concluded thoughtfully.

"I'd say so," Branch agreed. "Whatever this was all about, it has somebody scared enough to want to permanently remove the opposition to the casino. That means taking out the leaders of the opposition, or distracting anyone who might make trouble." He looked directly at Walt. "Your wife. You. Henry too, probably."

"Why is that so important?" Walt asked. "That casino's not even half built, yet."

"That's just it, Walt. Construction delays cost money. Lots of money."

"Heck, if my dad's schedule gets off by even a few days, because of weather or something, it can eat all the profit out of a job," Ferg added. "This thing is months – _years_ – behind schedule."

"They're probably so deep in the red ink, they're swimming in it." Branch said. "We're talking six, seven figures by now."

"That's real motive," Ferg said, voicing what they were all thinking. Martha Longmire had died because of that casino.

Branch gave Walt an assessing glance. "So do we still arrest Nighthorse? We don't have any real proof, and moving too soon could let him know we're on to him."

Walt considered it for a moment. "You give that hair over for DNA?"

"Yeah, but it'll be at least 72 hours before we get a result, and that's if Weston's lab has the time."

"Vic and Cady are credible witnesses, but bias could still be considered a factor." He shifted his weight, thinking. "All right. We go after Nighthorse for helping Ridges –whatever we can think of as long as it's connected to Ridges' faking his death. I want him to think we're after his buddy. But it gives me what I need to get his phone records, and maybe even his financials."

By eight o'clock that night, Jacob Nighthorse was staring at Walt, Branch, and Ferg through the iron bars of the cell nearest Ferg's desk. To say he was not happy was an understatement, and his chiseled features were tight with displeasure. His former protégé was ignoring him, which only served to further irritate the powerful businessman.

"Connolly. You owe me," he reminded the younger man in a low growl.

"Owe you? For what? Campaign contributions with more strings than I can count?" Branch moved closer to the jail cell, regarding his defunct campaign manager. "If I had been elected, you'd have held that over my head for years. Kinda makes me glad I lost, actually."

He tucked his thumbs into his belt, giving Jacob a hard look. "I'm my own man, Jacob. And I warned you about Ridges. Don't blame me because you protected a criminal and it's come back to bite you in the ass."

Jacob looked past the tall deputy towards Walt. "Are you enjoying this, Sheriff?"

"Nope," Walt replied as he and Ferg went over their paperwork for Nighthorse's arrest. "Your lawyer is on the way, Jacob. Just sit down, try not to get too worked up. I hear the stress is bad for men like you, in your high-dollar jobs."

His jaw clenched, but neither Walt nor Branch gave any inkling of sympathy. Finally his common sense won out over his pride. "What if I made you a deal?"

"What kind of deal?" Walt replied absently, although the pen in his fingers stilled.

Twenty minutes later they had ironed out the details, and Jacob's lawyer had arrived and signed off on the agreement. Branch led Jacob and the lawyer, an attractive woman in her thirties, towards the door. Despite Jacob's posturing, he kept his expression stoic and his words short. Walt followed up behind them, and had one last warning.

"Jacob, I'll have solid DNA evidence that David Ridges is alive within 72 hours. If you don't want to me to file those charges on making a false statement, obstruction of justice and anything else I can think of, you'd better hope Ridges contacts you."

"My client will cooperate fully," the lawyer assured them, although she seemed to be the only one who believed those words. "Mr. Nighthorse will inform you of any communications he has with David Ridges."

"You said your deputy shot him," Nighthorse said pensively. "If he's hurt, he will probably call me for assistance, or a medicine woman I know. As soon as I hear from him, I'll let you know where he is."

"You do that," Walt told him. "Because if you don't, I know this stretch of I-25 that hasn't seen a road crew in a couple of years."

Nighthorse looked unimpressed with the threat of picking up trash as community service, but refrained from further comment as he and his lawyer made their way across the foyer and down the stairs. Branch followed, shutting and locking the door behind them.

"Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out," he added as he took the stairs back up, two at a time.

"You really think this will help flush out Ridges?" he asked as he returned to the station proper.

"Obstruction and making false statements isn't gonna get Jacob more than a slap on the wrist. I want something solid on Nighthorse, and I need Ridges – alive – to get it. But if Jacob thinks we're getting too close to the truth, he'll probably disappear, and do a better job of it than Ridges did."

"So we wait?"

"We wait." He turned and regarded his other deputy. "Ferg, you gonna take your time off tomorrow?"

"I can stay on, what with Vic out and all," the younger man offered.

"Nah, you've earned some time off. You've worked hard these last few weeks. Enjoy it."

"You'll call me if you need me, right?"

"Sure thing," Walt agreed. "Knowing Vic, she'll be here in the morning. Even if she's not, Branch and I can handle things."


	15. Chapter 15

**Title: NOT EXACTLY BFF's**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13 for language (c'mon, it's Vic!)**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Takes place after 'Harvest' but veers off before 'Counting Coup.'**

**Author's note: #LongLiveLongmire!**

~Chapter 15~

Despite Walt's prediction, Vic did not make it into the station the next morning. In fact, when she finally rolled over and looked at the clock in her darkened bedroom, Vic squinted at the numbers and then fumbled for her cell phone to double-check the time. The only problem was the fact that the damned thing was missing from its usual place on her nightstand.

"What the fuck did you do with my phone?" she grumbled when she shuffled down the stairs to her kitchen.

"Good morning to you, too," Cady retorted, but patted at the piles of paperwork from her real job that had spread themselves over Vic's kitchen table. Eventually she found the right lump and retrieved the device, handing it over. "You had the alarm set for six o'clock."

"I know – I have to get to work," Vic said, pushing buttons to wake it up. "Is it really eleven? Shit!"

"You needed the extra sleep, Vic. In case you forgot, you got the crap knocked out of you yesterday. Not to mention a week-old concussion and all the stress you've been under."

"You're the one who made me take those painkillers last night. And by the way, my mother's in Philadelphia for a reason, so you can knock that shit off."

"Your mother should have washed your mouth out with soap. And my dad already called, so he knows you're not going in to work today."

"He did?" she asked. Distracted entirely from her grumpiness, she checked her call history.

Cady tilted her head down towards the folder in her hand, allowing her hair to swing forward and hide her smirk from the woman across from her. Watching her reserved, phlegmatic father and his brash, foul-mouthed deputy circle each other for the next few months promised to be endlessly entertaining. It would not do to push things prematurely.

"He did," she replied nonchalantly. "I told him you were sleeping and would give you the news when you woke up."

"What news?"

Stiffly curling her body into the chair at the kitchen table, Vic wrapped her hands around a cup of coffee while Cady filled her in on her conversation with her father; namely that he and Branch and Ferg had come to the conclusion that Nighthorse had to have been in Absaroka before Martha Longmire's death.

"Dad also got a warrant for Nighthorse's phone records."

"YES!" Vic put both hands in the air in a 'touchdown' signal, then winced when the muscles over her bruised ribs protested.

"Okay, time for more pills," Cady decided. "It will be hours before he gets those records, and you're in no shape to go back to work. Maybe tomorrow." She went back to reading the deposition for a custody case she was working, doing her best to ignore the disgruntled blonde who'd become something close to a friend in the last week.

"We still haven't put much time in correlating the other phone records we have," Vic protested. "Doing that now will save us a ton of trouble later."

"You're not supposed to be reading, either," Cady reminded her. "Take some more of those painkillers and _go back to bed_." Without looking up, she added, "and don't roll your eyes at me, young lady!"

With a little negotiation, some arm twisting, and holding Vic's truck keys hostage, Cady managed to keep Vic at home until late afternoon. A call to her father and to Henry arranged a meeting at the Red Pony, and they arrived to find Henry had closed off the back room of the bar to give them space and some privacy. It was well before the dinner rush, and by the time Walt arrived, Cady and Vic a plan of action.

"Henry," he greeted his friend as he walked into the bar. "Sorry I'm late. Got held up."

Actually, he hadn't been held up so much as remained at the station until Branch arrived to cover the night shift. Normally the evening shift personnel were slated to arrive by two in the afternoon, but Branch had asked for some personal time. Walt hadn't pried into the reason, but was fairly certain his deputy had made an appointment with a therapist or counselor of some sort.

"Not to worry," Henry told him. "Vic and Cady have only been here for a little while."

Walt took in the sight of the two women, both wearing casual clothes. Vic in particular was dressed down with an Eagles hoodie and a set of jogging leggings that left her ankles bare above her running shoes. He hadn't seen her that casual since the night she'd stayed with him at his cabin.

"What's Vic doing here? Doc Weston said she was supposed to be resting."

"Your daughter tells me she gave up trying to keep Vic in bed," Henry replied. "Do you think you could do better?"

Despite the perfectly innocent tone of voice, Walt caught the innuendo. He gave his oldest friend a glare, which was ignored with the ease of nearly forty years of practice.

"Ladies," he greeted them instead, placing his hat on the table and shedding his coat. He used the delay to inspect Vic's injuries. Her lower lip was still swollen on the left side, a butterfly suture keeping the split together. A lovely purple crescent rimmed the edge of the eye socket near the contusion on her temple, but it did nothing to diminish the challenge in her eyes.

"Before you ask me if I'm okay, I should warn you that the next person who asks me if I'm okay is going to get their ass kicked."

"Then I guess you're okay," Walt replied with a faint grin. "Cady should have taken up nursing."

"Oh, hell no," his daughter replied as she laid out several sheaves of papers on the table. "She's worse than you are."

"So – what do you have?" he asked, eyeing the paraphernalia on the table.

"You told Cady you have reason to believe Nighthorse was in town before your wife was killed," Vic started. "We're all agreed that this has to do with the casino, but we don't know why. The only thing I know to do is to keep hammering on this until something breaks loose, so… here's where we hammer."

"These are the phone records of everyone we have connected to Henry's case, and probably Mom's case," Cady continued. "We have call histories on Miller Beck, Tug Retton, and our witness Jonas Gaitherson. This includes primary numbers and all the burner phones the Denver PD was able to associate with them."

"Retton. That is the man that used to drink with Ridges, correct?" Henry asked.

"Yeah," Vic confirmed. "He died of a drug overdose about a month after his friend Beck disappeared."

"That's mighty convenient," Walt commented.

"Convenient, my ass. We also have phone records for our 'interested parties' in Wyoming, namely David Ridges and Malachi Strand." Vic held up several notecards, each with a set of numbers written in bold black print on them. "These have a list of phone numbers that we expect to find, like the Four Arrows Casino main switchboard, Jacob Nighthorse's office and home phone number, and a couple of others. It also has all the numbers I could dig up for the members of the Tribal Council, but we can't get a warrant for their phones yet because we don't have probable cause."

She handed one of the cards to each of the people present. "Back in Philadelphia, we had some nifty software where we could feed these call records in and it would spit out our results in about ten seconds. Here in Absaroka, we have these." She held up a handful of highlighters in various neon colors.

"Cady and I will work on the Denver records, you two work on the Wyoming people. If you recognize a phone number, highlight it. If you see the phone number for the Four Arrows Casino switchboard, highlight it. If you see an out of state phone number…"

"Highlight it. We get it," Walt told her, pulling a list towards himself.

"Right. We also want to flag any out of state calls – the Wyoming folks calling Denver or the Denver folks calling Wyoming. That's 303 &amp; 720 area codes for Denver and Boulder."

"We actually knew that," Cady reminded her. Vic made a mocking face towards her, and Cady responded with a similarly juvenile expression before they both grinned and took their places at the table.

"Oh, and if you see an 877 number, it's probably a phone sex line, so just write it on your hand for later and keep going."

They all set to work, scanning line after line of phone calls. Henry was the first to find one, his face turning to stone as he ran the highlighter over the number on the paper.

"Find something?" Vic asked.

"This is Darius Burns' record. He has called Deena Many Camps on several occasions."

"By the way, I saw that heifer the other day," Cady remarked.

"Where?" he asked, and might have made the question sound casual if it weren't for the way his jaw was locked tight.

"The liquor store over on Pearl Street. I was getting a bottle of wine. She said hi." Cady rolled her eyes.

"Bad break up?" Vic quipped.

Henry gave her a look over his black reading glasses. "Vic, did you not wonder how I have run a successful business for years but had no money to hire a lawyer?"

"Yeah, but I figured it wasn't any of my business. I know you help out people on the Rez like Lily Stillwater."

"Two months ago, I had over forty thousand dollars in cash in my safe. Strangely, it all disappeared just before I was arrested. Deena was the only one who knew the combination to my safe. When I confronted her, she did not even deny stealing it."

Vic shook her head. "People used to not trust banks so they kept their cash in their mattress. Now people are worried about things like identity theft and they're going back to cash."

"Speaking of cash, Malachi dropped by again yesterday evening," Henry informed them.

"Still wants to buy this place?" Walt asked.

"Yes."

"Those clowns on the parole board let him loose, even after I went to his parole hearing and spoke a few plain truths. If I had to guess, I'd say he's still up to his old games and has something on one of the board members."

"Extortion against a Parole Board member is a federal offense, isn't it?" Vic asked. "Think we could get the F.B.I. in on this?"

Cady frowned, but never looked up from her task. "I thought the FBI was the enemy."

"Not really. They're just a pain in the ass. Okay, they have the best training, the coolest equipment, all that, but they can be real bastards and they usually treat the local PD like Barney Fife. Even in Philadelphia."

The conversation continued in disjointed segments as they worked through their lists, until Vic hit pay dirt at the end of Miller Beck's burner phone record.

"Henry – you and Walt went to Denver around the first week or so of July, right?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Beck's last phone calls were on July the 12th. He made a call to Tug Retton on the ninth of July. Cady, you've got Retton's records. See if there's an incoming call from this number on that day."

The redhead flipped forward a page or two. "Yep. Right here. July ninth."

"That was probably Beck calling Retton looking for protection. There's about four more calls to the same number on the eleventh."

"Hector brought me Beck's teeth about that time," Henry said grimly.

"So that would be our boy freaking out after Hector kicked his ass. What's next on Retton's list?"

"There's a couple to local Denver numbers," Cady answered. "Someone he called a lot. Then there's one to Wyoming."

"Who was it?"

They glanced at the cheat sheet of numbers. "This is David Ridges' number."

"Who's got Ridge's records?"

"I do," Henry said. "July eleven. One incoming call, from a Denver phone number. An hour later, he called this number here."

Walt stabbed the cheat sheet with one blunt finger as he found a match. "This one. It's Jacob Nighthorse's phone number. But he didn't make any other calls that night."

"Not on that phone," Vic commented. "He's probably got another burner phone."

"Ridges has an incoming call about twenty minutes after that," Henry reported. "I don't recognize this one, but the call only lasted a few minutes."

The four of them exchanged glances, but Vic was the first to speak. "Want to bet that one is Nighthorse's burner?"

"Sending Ridges to Denver to kill Miller Beck," Walt finished. "Making sure he didn't talk about who hired him to kill my wife."

"Is this enough to arrest Nighthorse?" Cady asked.

Vic and Walt considered it. "It might be," he answered.

"I'd still feel better if we had some idea as to motive. That's bugged me from the beginning. The injunction had been overturned – Martha was distracted with her medical treatment. Walt, you weren't pursuing any investigation. So why the hell did they bother?"

"Oh – that card!" Cady announced. Digging into her bag, she extracted her laptop and turned it on. The others gathered around as she brought up a search engine and put in the notes Bonnie Rosky had written on the card from Martha.

"Eastland, Florida, Casino," she hummed as she entered search key words. "Got something here about a court battle over an injunction..."

"Florida had some of the first Indian casinos," Walt commented as he read over Cady's shoulder. "They've got something of a history of court battles."

"This doesn't say anything helpful," Vic growled. "Try another."

Eventually they found a news story from several years earlier that outlined a protracted court case over the building of a casino on tribal land.

"It's more of this zoning and permits bullshit," Vic concluded. "And eventually the Eastland tribe decided to build somewhere else."

"Perhaps Martha had planned to hire a lawyer to tie up Four Arrows in the same way?" Henry ventured.

"We didn't have that kind of money," Walt replied quietly. "Insurance wasn't covering all of Martha's treatments, so the checkbook was pretty thin back then."

"Where does that leave us?" Cady asked. "We've got phone records tying Miller Beck's murder to Ridges and Nighthorse, but I guarantee Nighthorse can afford a really good defense attorney. Henry's trial is in four weeks."

"What time is it?" Vic asked. The others looked at her.

"There's one person we haven't talked to yet, who might have some information on David Ridges. And, he's had a front row seat to this mess with Malachi Strand. The only problem is going to be trying to get him to talk to us."

She gave Henry a significant glance, which got her a raised eyebrow in return. "Who did you have in mind?"

"The Chief of Police on the Rez. Mathias Running Fox."


	16. Chapter 16

**Title: NOT EXACTLY BFF's**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13 for language (c'mon, it's Vic!)**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Takes place after 'Harvest' but veers off before 'Counting Coup.'**

**Author's note: #LongLiveLongmire!**

~Chapter 16~

Mathias may have been surprised to see four people waiting on the porch of his row house when he got home, but his trademark stoic disdain never faltered as he got out of his truck. He slung his duty belt over his shoulder and deliberately looked past them all, walked up to his front door without a word, and unlocked it.

Henry moved forward, his arm lashing out like a sudden rattlesnake strike and barring the door frame. "You can ignore us all you want, Mathias, but we have some questions to ask you. We will not go away until we have some answers."

The two men regarded each other for a long moment, each with the implacable endurance of a mountain.

"I'm gonna change and then go for a run," Mathias finally answered. "You have as long as it takes for me to get bored."

"Fine," Henry answered, and removed his arm. True to his word, Mathias emerged only a few minutes later, his uniform exchanged for a pair of faded red running shorts and tattered running shoes. An equally worn tee-shirt was slung over his shoulder, and his long hair had been pulled back in a tail.

"Maybe you should put that on your contact list," Vic murmured in Cady's ear.

"You have more reason to call him than I do," she whispered back, but agreed that Mathias' bare chest was worthy of any woman's cell phone.

He may not have been able to hear their words, but Mathias obviously recognized their comments had to do with him. He took in Vic's bruises and marks, and raised an eyebrow. "What happened to you, Philly?"

"David Ridges," she answered dryly.

"He's supposed to be dead."

"He might be by now – I shot him yesterday. So, you can understand why we might want to talk to the Rez Chief of Police?"

"About what?" he questioned, still obstinate.

"Well, Ridges to start with. Then we might have some interest in Jacob Nighthorse and Malachi Strand."

"Bored now," he announced, stepping towards the road. He stopped short when both Walt and Henry moved to intercept him. "If Ridges is still alive, he's your problem."

"Not if he's on Rez land," Walt reminded him. "That's your jurisdiction, remember?"

"You got any proof he's here?"

"No," Henry replied patiently. "But we all know that David is a committed member of the Hotametaneo'o. If he has turned to one of them for help, it would be your duty to inform the sheriff."

"I'll make some calls," Mathias promised blithely. "Tomorrow, maybe day after tomorrow."

"Fine," Henry bit out. "Then maybe you can answer some questions about Malachi Strand, and what he has been doing for Jacob Nighthorse since he was released from prison."

"I don't have anything to say about Nighthorse or Strand," Mathias declared. "Especially to a bunch of white Dudley Do-rights and their token Apple."

"Apple – that's an insult, right?" Vic asked. "A Cheyenne who's red on the outside, white on the inside?"

Mathias turned away from Henry and towards the blonde woman, her casual disregard of his culture making his irritation build even higher. She crossed her arms, shrugging in blithe innocence while her cheeks tightened with a malicious smile. "Tell me something, Mathias. What's the Cheyenne word for a cannibal?"

"Come again?"

"A cannibal. Someone who feeds off his own kind. Because that's what Strand is."

"That's some pretty strong words, coming from a skinny white…"

"You want some strong words?" Vic interrupted before he could finish his insult. "How about 'dirty cop?' That strong enough for you? See, I have some real world experience working with cops who were corrupt. How long did you work for Strand, anyway? Were you dirty too, or just stupid?"

"I never took a bribe in my life," Mathias vowed, his voice steel-cold. "Longmire and his pet Bear here may have gotten Malachi arrested, but everyone on the Rez knows extortion and bribery are the only way anything in the government gets done."

"Is that what you told Adele Chapman? Remember her? She had to pay Malachi to arrest the guys who raped her, and then he took a bigger payoff from those same men to drop the charges."

Mathias swallowed hard, but had no smart comeback for that.

"You were his deputy," Henry reminded him. "You saw what kind of a police chief he was, how he made people pay him to do his job. If it were not for Hector during those years, no one on this reservation would have had any kind justice."

"That's why Hector died," Cady blurted out.

Mathias scowled at the interruption, but Walt and Vic exchanged a look with Henry.

"I think she's right," Walt said for all of them.

"About what?" Mathias demanded.

"Hector wouldn't have let Malachi slide back into his usual way of doing business," Walt answered. "He would have done something about Malachi, and it probably would have involved more than knocking out a couple of his teeth. That's why they had him killed."

"And it probably had nothing to do with Henry's trial," Vic added, disappointed.

"No. Ridges killed Hector because he was a true warrior, not one of the Dog Soldier wanna-be's," Henry concluded in a dour voice.

"Ridges killed Hector?" Mathias repeated, incredulous. "You didn't think that was worth letting me know about it?"

"It happened outside the Rez, and we all know how important jurisdiction is to you," Walt pointed out dryly. "And like you said, Ridges was supposed to be dead. But you don't seem that surprised to hear he's still alive."

"I'm not," Mathias admitted with a huff of disgust. "He's an arrogant bastard. He's too hung up on the status of the Hotametaneo'o to just kill himself."

When Vic and Cady quirked an eyebrow in confusion, Henry clarified it for them. "To the Cheyenne, the dog soldier represents guardianship and self-sacrifice. Suicide does not fit well with someone determined to go out in a blaze of glory."

"Ridges certainly is arrogant," Walt agreed. "He attacked Vic and Cady in broad daylight yesterday. He warned Cady to stop working on Henry's defense. Whatever else this is all about, Henry's case is still important."

Mathias looked at each of them in turn, visibly torn and fed up. "What do you want to know?" he asked finally, as though the words left a bad taste in his mouth.

"The Tribal Council appoints the Chief of Police on the Reservation, right?" Vic asked, immediately returning to a professional tone of voice. "Who appointed Strand? More importantly, who left Strand in charge when he was blatantly abusing his position?"

"It came up a couple of times, but Strand had dirt on everyone, even the deputies. Anita Eaglestar made a couple of stabs at getting him booted, but the others on the council outvoted her."

Walt asked the next question. "When Malachi was convicted, that when you got the job?"

"No, they promoted Albert Last Bull to be the chief. He had all the imagination and initiative of a rock. He lasted about three months before he got canned."

"Now for the million dollar question," Vic said. "Who was Malachi's buddy on the Tribal Council?"

It was a long moment before Mathias answered, and he glanced at each of them before dropping his gaze to the west, where the sun was approaching the barely-visible mountains.

"He had a couple of allies. Howard Wynema and George Red Elk were always turning a blind eye to complaints about Malachi, making excuses for him and downplaying his involvement."

Walt moved a tiny increment of space forward. "So Malachi worked for them?"

"It was more a mutual ass-kissing society," Mathias said. "Jacob Nighthorse fit right in with 'em."

"So who was kissing who's ass when Last Bull got promoted?"

Standing to one side, Cady caught her godfather's eye, and they shared a smile while they watched Vic and Walt tag-team Mathias with their questions.

"It was a closed session, so I have no idea," he replied. "But when me and the other deputies got sick of him doing jack around the office, we went to the council to complain. Next thing we know, Albert was out, and I got rewarded for my sins by getting the job."

"Henry, you know anything about these two men?" Walt asked.

Henry nodded. "Wynema runs cattle on the reservation's grazing lands. He took several local white ranchers to court a few years ago for running their cattle on our lands without a lease. Red Elk is a businessman, fairly successful. He owns several small businesses here in Wyoming and in southern Montana."

"Wynema voted for the blood quantum rule, didn't he?"

"Yes," Henry answered. "Red Elk could never seem to make up his mind, but he has several nieces and nephews who would be excluded."

"Their mother should have stayed with the tribe," Mathias commented to no one in particular. "We done here?"

"I'm really sorry my mother's murder investigation is taking up so much of your time," Cady told him, her voice poisonously sweet. "Maybe the next time Ridges attacks me, he'll do it somewhere more convenient for you."

Mathias' eyes flickered away, landing on Vic's bruised face before skittering past Henry and Walt. His lips pursed tightly as his instincts and engrained mental patterns crashed against the constraints of his own integrity.

"I might know where Ridges is," he ground out at last.

Walt gave him a long, assessing look. Their history was littered with the stains of mutual antipathy, but he still respected Mathias as a lawman. "Where?"

"There's an old farmstead on the ass-end of the Rez. Ridges aunt owned it. She died about ten years ago and left it to the tribe, but nobody's done anything with it."

"You gonna call in some of your officers for back-up?"

"Hell, no. Bad enough I'm taking you and Standing Bear." Mathias looked at the horizon once more, where colors were beginning to appear and the distant mountains seemed to be reaching up towards the sun. "We better move if we want to be there before it gets dark."

While Mathias ducked back into his house to retrieve his equipment, Cady and Henry headed towards the Bronco's passenger side. As they stepped towards the driver's door, Walt stopped Vic with a hand on her arm.

"I shouldn't be asking you this," he began.

Her temper flared. "Walt, if you think I'm staying in the car while you go play cowboys and Indians…"

"I'm asking you to protect Cady." His sudden declaration stopped her short, and she listened, uncertain of his real intentions. "I only have the one rifle in in the truck. I'll give it to Henry when we get to wherever it is Mathias is taking us. I'd feel better – that is, I know you can handle yourself…"

He glanced at his passengers, who were watching the house for Mathias, not the two of them. Frustrated and inarticulate, he blurted out the truth.

"Vic, I already lost my wife. I can't lose my daughter, too."

His gaze met hers, noting how the hints of green in her eyes showed in the sunlight. With one careful thumb he traced the line of purple that rimmed the edge of her left eye before dropping his hand. "You did a good job watching out for her yesterday. Ridges could have killed her. Now I'm asking you to make sure he doesn't try again."

Vic considered his words. "As long as this isn't some macho bullshit about protecting the women-folk."

"Nope."

Her expression turned skeptical. "You're trusting me to guard Cady instead of her godfather?"

You're meaner than Henry," he said solemnly, then ruined it with a wink.

She snorted with laughter and shook her head, nearly blushing. "Walt Longmire, you are a sweet talker after all."


	17. Chapter 17

**Title: NOT EXACTLY BFF's**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13 for language (c'mon, it's Vic!)**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Takes place after 'Harvest' but veers off before 'Counting Coup.'**

**Author's note: #LongLiveLongmire!**

~Chapter 17~

The sun had nearly set by the time they arrived on the far side of the Rez, leaving the landscape bathed in a strong yellow twilight. The two vehicles parked in a V formation, blocking the winding drive to a ramshackle mess of a house surrounded by overgrown grass and cottonwood trees. The recent passage of tires had left trails of bruised plant material all the way from the nearby gravel road; a car had passed through here recently.

As agreed, the three men left Vic and Cady in the Bronco and met briefly in front of the trucks. Mathias should have looked ridiculous wearing his duty belt over a threadbare white tee-shirt and red running shorts, but he did not. In actuality, he reminded Walt of the White Warriors that they'd detained after Branch had been shot.

"What's the plan, sheriff?" Mathias asked.

Walt resettled his hat on his head and deferred. "Your jurisdiction – your plan."

"Not really. Rez ended about half a mile back that way." Without looking at him, Mathias' face twisted into a cynical smile. "Why don't we call this a joint task force sorta thing."

Grinning at the joke, Walt nodded. "You and Henry circle around back. I'll go in the front. If he's capable of running, he probably will."

"Maybe. Maybe he'll just shoot you through the door when you knock."

"Maybe," Walt agreed, but they wouldn't know for sure until they actually got to that moment. No further conversation was necessary; the two Cheyenne faded into the tall grass and began skirting the property while Walt ambled to the front door.

Taking advice he'd once given Branch, Walt stood to one side of the sturdy doorway and pounded on the door. "DAVID RIDGES! This is the Sheriff's department! Come out with your hands up!"

Silence greeted his words, and after a moment he turned the knob and let the door swing open. Nothing happened. Taking a quick breath he entered the house, moving in habits he'd learned from Lucian Connelly long ago, when he was a green deputy. The living room was dimly lit from the windows, what little furniture it held covered with dust. Methodically he checked each room as he made his way to the back of the house. Halfway down the hall, Mathias and Henry joined him.

"We found a camp stove in the kitchen, dirty pans, some food," Mathias told him in an undertone. "The propane tank still has gas in it."

Walt nodded, and together they cleared the rest of the small house. A bathroom and two small bedrooms completed the layout. Mostly devoid of furniture, one bedroom contained a sagging metal-framed bed, the mattress of which had been nearly gutted by mice and other scavengers.

"He's gone," Mathias declared, holstering his gun. "But he's been here, probably within the last four hours."

"We found bandages, peroxide, and a bloody shirt in a trash bag," Henry added. "Some of the bandages are still damp – he changed them not long ago."

"Get Vic and Cady," Walt told Henry. "We're gonna run out of light soon, we need to search this place as well as we can."

Minutes later, all five of them were carefully going through the house. Henry and Mathias had broken off to check the bathroom and bedrooms, looking for any other signs of habitation. In the kitchen, Cady looked through the cabinets and poked at the plastic bag containing canned chili, tamales, and other easily heated bachelor food.

"Found a phone!" she yelled out, then her face fell. "It's dead – we'll have to charge it up before we can see who he's called." She placed it in one of the empty plastic shopping bags and kept looking.

In the meantime, Walt and Vic searched the living room and the hall, checking under cushions and through the drawers of a few forgotten side tables. While Walt checked the fireplace, Vic inspected the hall closet and its meager contents, all pitiful remnants of the house's former inhabitants. Just as she went to shut the door and move on, however, something caught her eye.

"Hey. I think I got something."

She drew out a garment from the darkest corner, which at first she'd taken for a shabby, moth-eaten fur coat.

"What'd you find?" Walt asked, coming up behind her. The others crowded into the tiny hallway as well.

Hooking the metal hanger over the top edge of the closet door, she pushed the closet door nearly shut to get what little was left of the fading light coming through the windows to shine on the coat.

"I think this is leather – it's not a woman's coat. You said an old lady lived here?"

"Yeah," Mathias answered, fingering the hand-tanned suede. "This is probably buffalo hide."

"Those are dark medicine symbols," Henry informed them, indicating the white eyes and lightning strike symbols on the sleeves. His face was grim.

"Is that a Cheyenne medicine?" Cady asked, peering over Henry's shoulder.

"What the hell is this?" Vic interrupted, fingering another piece of fur. Several patches, each just a bit larger than a man's palm print, decorated the shoulders of the garment. The pelts varied in shades and staple length, some thick and straight, others with thinner, wavy locks.

Mathias suddenly grabbed Vic's hand away from the leather, a word bursting out of his mouth. Vic didn't have to speak Cheyenne to know it had been a curse word, and a rather strong one at that. Likewise, Henry had turned to push Cady back and away from the coat.

"Is this what I think it is?" Walt asked, his voice dangerously low.

Mathias gave Walt a long, considering look, then nodded. He kept his grip on Vic's arm while Walt took the coat hanger, carefully not touching the garment, and held it out away from his body. "I'll put this in the truck," he told them.

"Okay, wait. You all are acting awful weird over one butt-ugly coat. What the hell is going on?"

Walt paused, looking at Henry, who exchanged a dire look with Mathias. Vic shifted, opening her mouth, her annoyance visibly boiling up and over.

"It is a coup coat," Henry supplied.

"Great. What the fuck does that mean?"

"I'm familiar with counting coup – it's the mark of a brave warrior, touching his enemy without getting hurt," Cady added towards Vic. "But I don't know what that has to do with a coat."

"In some tribal traditions, the story gets a little darker," Walt told them, which didn't really tell them anything.

"Cut the crap, Walt. What the hell is that thing?"

Henry broke the tense silence first. "That is one traditional meaning of counting coup. Among some of the First People, however, the taking of scalps is the first step in making a coup coat."

Vic eyed the coat with its many colored scraps of fur. "They kept the scalps."

"Yes."

"And made them into a coat."

Henry heaved a sigh. "Yes."

Her mouth opened, but for once in her life, Vic Moretti was at a complete loss for words. "EWWW!" she managed at last, her face screwed up in disgust. "Officially the _creepiest_ serial killer trophy I have _ever_ heard of."

Cady looked as though she might be sick. "So that's got a part of every person Ridges killed?"

"Probably," Vic replied. Her expression changed from distaste to consideration. "Hey, Cady – that autopsy report on Beck – did it mention anything about him missing any scalp pieces or hair?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Well, he'd been dead a couple of weeks before he was found. The hair mass probably fell off. It's possible the coroner didn't bother to reconstruct the puzzle pieces."

Walt nodded in agreement. "We need to bag this as evidence," he declared, heading towards the door.

"I know I'm going to regret asking this, but what's a hair mass?" Cady asked as she and Vic followed her father to the Bronco. Mathias and Henry fell in behind them.

Umm, yeah. See, when a body's been dead for a while, the skin starts to fall off in sheets," Vic explained. "The scalp and hair are known to fall off in a big wad. It's called a hair mass."

Mathias gave her a long, level look. "Ew."

"Yeah, but five bucks says one of these belonged to Miller Beck."

Cady grinned as she caught on. "And if it does, Henry is a free man."

"Yep. Scalp beats a set of broken teeth."

"You two can compare poker hands later," Walt called as he opened the back of the Bronco. "We still need to find Ridges."

Lacking any large evidence bags, he simply placed it the back and covered it with one of the blankets he carried. The cell phone Cady found was bagged and placed in his pocket.

"Right," Vic agreed. "So, Chief, you got any other ideas where Ridges might go?"

Mathias considered it. "He's probably gotten one of his White Warrior buddies to pick him up. Somebody brought him those medical supplies and that food. Most of them live on the Rez, but some aren't."

"You have this whole place memorized or something?"

"I grew up here, Philly. I know nearly every inch of this land. My senior year in high school, I did a paper on the Executive Order of 1884." He turned to Cady. "Your mom gave me an A on it."

"I'll bite - what's the Executive order eighteen whatever about?"

Looking out over the grasslands and scattered trees, a trace of Mathias' usual bitterness returned. "In 1884, the federal government designated the Northern Cheyenne Reservation and established the official boundaries for the sovereign lands." He flicked a finger towards the west. "We're on the east side of the Rez, but the line is over that way a ways. This here is not Rez territory."

"Wait a minute," Vic protested. "You said Ridges' aunt left this ranch to the tribe. Doesn't that make it Rez property?"

"Yeah, it's part of the tribal holdings, but it's not the Rez. Lots of land parcels around here have been bought up by the tribe over the years, or had it willed to them, signed over, whatever. But it's not the same thing."

Vic's head cocked to one side, her eyes narrowing in thought. "Cady, you said the Reservation is sovereign territory. What about land outside the Rez, but owned by the tribe?"

"What about it?"

"Mathias, you said you know every inch of the original Reservation. Over where they're building the casino – is it on Reservation land, or outside the original borders?"

Mathias shrugged. "Just outside. Why?"

She was silent for a moment. "That case we looked up – down in Florida, the one your mom talked to Bonnie Rosky about. It had to do with a casino being built outside a traditional Reservation. On land subject to zoning regulations, permit processes, you name it, right?"

"Yeah," Cady answered, frowning. "The original injunction against the Four Arrows casino – it was based on the zoning. But a Federal judge overturned the injunction because it was Indian land."

"It's Indian land because it's owned by the tribe, Cady. _But it isn't part of the Rez_."

"It isn't sovereign land," Cady murmured. "Oh, my God. That's it. That's what my mother found out." One hand covered her mouth, and tears began to fill her eyes.

As if summoned by her need, Cady's father appeared at her side. He was startled when his daughter blindly reached out for his jacket with her free hand, fisting the worn brown leather and holding onto it as she swayed. Walt quickly supported her, one arm going around her back. "What happened?" he demanded.

He looked to Henry for answers, but his friend was equally at a loss, having been occupied with returning Walt's rifle to its brackets in the truck and hadn't been privy to the conversation. They looked to Vic for answers, but neither one was reassured by the sorrow and resignation on her face.

"Walt, we know why they killed your wife," Vic told him softly. "It all goes back to the land."

"Don't look at me," Mathias denied when Walt glanced towards him for clarification.

Vic swallowed. "Mathias, you weren't the chief when the injunction against the building of the casino came out, then got overturned. It all had to do with the builder, and him taking a bunch of shortcuts when it came to the building permits and zoning crap. It was overturned by a federal judge because the reservation is considered sovereign territory.

"But it's not being built on the Rez, so it doesn't matter who owns the land. Just like this is our jurisdiction, not yours – anyone building something out here would still have to go through the zoning and permits and all that bullshit. It wouldn't matter if they were building a gas station or a freaking chicken house, they still have to go by the rules."

Cady pulled herself together enough to speak, though her voice was thin and high with emotion. "Dad, that's why Mom was killed. She must have found out."

"Because they didn't get a permit?" he asked, irritated at the pettiness of it all.

"Just getting new gravel spread on my parking lot required a permit," Henry declared grimly. "That casino would have required many, many permits."

"The original injunction talked about environmental impact studies, groundwater surveys, wastewater treatment regulations…" Cady told them, sniffling. "They didn't adhere to any of that when they started building. They'd have to pay for everything the original builder skipped, then probably pay some substantial fines on top of that."

"I've heard of people having to pull down new construction that didn't get the proper building permits," Mathias added.

Vic shook her head. "We could be talking about tens of millions of dollars."

"You're saying my wife died because of this," Walt concluded.

"She must have figured it out. You said she was volunteering on the Rez. Hell, I don't know, maybe she even remember Mathias' homework. The point is, she knew the casino wasn't going up on the Rez proper. So Nighthorse or one of his Council member buddies had David Ridges kill her to shut her up."

"Who was it?" Walt asked in a stony voice. "Which one of those bastards had my wife killed?"


	18. Chapter 18

**Title: NOT EXACTLY BFF's**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13 for language (c'mon, it's Vic!)**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Takes place after 'Harvest' but veers off before 'Counting Coup.'**

**Author's note: #LongLiveLongmire!**

~Chapter 18~

"_Who was it?" Walt asked in a stony voice. "Which one of those bastards had my wife killed?"_

"We don't know that yet," Vic admitted. "We need that phone and we need Ridges in custody to find out."

"Retton," Henry said suddenly. "That name has sounded familiar."

"If you've got something to add, say it," Walt demanded, showing unusual impatience with his old friend.

"David Ridges' mother," Henry began cryptically. "She was born on the Rez, but left and moved to Denver as a young woman. She married a man named Ridges, who was half Cheyenne, half white. She used to bring her kids back here to visit.

"When David was sixteen, he came to live on the Rez with his aunt, but his older sister stayed in Denver. The sister married a man named Retton. She divorced him, however, when he became addicted to drugs."

"So Ridges kept in touch with his brother-in-law," Vic deduced. "And used him as a contact to find a meth-head willing to do a little job for him."

"Mathias?" Henry called, having noticed the chief staring into space. Or rather, staring towards the house they'd just searched.

"Ridges came back to the Rez and lived with his aunt - the one who used to own this house."

"Lydia Horse Comes Down, I think. What about her?"

"I was just a kid, but I remember her being pretty hot," Mathias volunteered. "I also remember she was dating some guy for years, but never married him."

Henry's eyes narrowed as he cudgeled through memories from twenty-five years ago. "She was involved with Ward Wynema, wasn't she?"

"As in the council member _Howard_ Wynema?" Cady asked.

"I think so," Henry replied.

"A dead woman's fling isn't enough to get a warrant," Vic interjected, "but it makes sense. If Wynema knew Ridges since he was a kid, then it's possible they maintained their relationship over the years."

"And if Wynema was part of this conspiracy, he could have introduced Ridges to Nighthorse," Walt finished.

"Now all we have to do is prove it," Vic finished sourly.

Walt nodded. "Mathias, you made a joke earlier – about a joint task force. You still willing to be a part of this?"

"Arresting Ridges – sure. Bringing down a couple of Tribal Council members – hell, no. I'll be out of a job so fast I'll have road rash on my ass."

"Glad to know you've got your priorities straight," Vic snarked.

"With or without a badge, I can't do a damned thing about this," Mathias warned. "Sheriff, you've already arrested one high-standing member of the tribe. You go after a council member, you're gonna have a Cheyenne riot on your doorstep."

"Oh, for God's sake! This has nothing to do with them being Native Americans – it has to do with them conspiring to commit murder!"

"I got news for you, Philly – we're all Native Americans," Mathias declared hotly. "You're Italian. I'm Cheyenne. That doesn't mean we're the same. They didn't take your kids away from their families and put them in special schools to keep them from speaking Italian. The Federal government didn't deny your ancestors the right to vote if they weren't tax-payers. Hell, in Colorado, Indians living on reservations weren't allowed to vote until 1970!"

Henry stepped forward, his hand raised in a peaceful gesture. "Mathias – I think it is fairly clear that someone on the Tribal Council is responsible."

"You gotta prove it, Standing Bear," the chief warned. "Even if you caught him red-handed," and he sneered at the pun, "there will be some who won't believe this isn't part of some vendetta."

"People are dead, Mathias," Walt said harshly.

"What do you want from me, Sheriff? I can't change people's attitudes."

"That casino has not brought one dime into the tribe yet, but it is already covered with blood," Henry pointed out. "The blood of _our_ people. Malcolm Eaglestar. Hector. How many will have to die before we say no more?"

Mathias' jaw tensed several times as he mulled it over. "You get proof – something solid, and I'll back your move, Sheriff. You go after Wynema or Red Elk with something bogus, I'm gonna pretend I never heard of you."

Walt looked away, towards the west and the distant reservation, but nodded once. "Deal."

~ L ~

By the time the Bronco pulled in next to Cady's Jeep, the evening crowd at the Red Pony was showing up in full force. Vic was the first out of the vehicle, but Cady took the time to lean forward over the back of the seat and brush her father's stubbly cheek with a quick kiss.

"Behave yourself, Dad," she ordered.

"Don't worry, Punk," he told her absently.

Henry paused, standing in the open door on the passenger side, and gave him a nod that seemed to encompass a wide variety of thoughts – thanks for the ride, commiseration, and acknowledgement that their hunt was nearly over.

"Move," Vic ordered, bulling her way between Henry and the truck. The corner of Henry's mouth kicked up in a slight smile, but he stepped back to give her room to climb into his recently vacated seat. He even went so far as to shut the door for her, then gave them a wave before heading in for a long evening of bartending.

Walt looked at Vic, as if surprised at her presence.

"I need a ride home," she told him. "And we need to talk."

Engrossed in his own thoughts, Walt complied, turning the Bronco towards town and the slightly newer subdivision where Vic lived.

"You going back to the station after you drop me off?"

"Yep."

"Don't forget you still have Ridges' phone in your pocket. Put it and the coat in the evidence locker, and I'll pick up a charger for it in the morning."

It wasn't really a locker; Lucian had bought a fireproof filing cabinet twenty years ago at an auction and Walt had pulled more than one muscle heaving it up the stairs. Only one key existed, and despite resolving to get another one ordered several times in the last two decades, he'd never quite gotten around to getting it done. It still worked well enough for their purposes.

"Between you and Branch and Ferg, there's gotta be four-five chargers at the station," Walt objected.

"We all use the micro-USB type," she told him. "This one needs a 30 pin."

Walt said nothing.

"You have no idea what the difference is, do you?"

"Nope."

Vic chuckled, looking out at the darkened streets as they drove through town. "You know, no matter what we find on that phone in the morning, we're gonna have to call in the state police."

Walt said nothing.

"Mathias had a point. If we go after someone on the Tribal Council, we'd better have our shit straight. You saw how crazy things got when that guy - Ethan Lone Elm died."

"Lone Elk," he corrected absently.

"Whatever. Those protesters we had over Newett and their drilling were seriously pissed at us. And remember how ugly things got when those Cheyenne kids went missing?"

He didn't answer. Vic's lower jaw began to just forward. Her suspicions had been correct – Walt had been even more quiet than usual, and that meant he'd been thinking far too much.

"All of us are too close to this case, Walt. Your wife, Cady's accident, Branch getting shot… even me. And Ferg doesn't have the experience to handle this. We totally have to do this by the book, air-tight or nothing."

"You're not directly affected by this case," he pointed out.

"No, but I was held hostage by a nut-job about a week ago. Not to mention Ridges tried to kill me yesterday. Any half-assed defense lawyer would take one look at this department and pop a woody over the potential lawsuits. And we both know Nighthorse doesn't hire half-assed lawyers – he has the best money can buy."

Walt rubbed his lip with one finger, a sure sign of a man formulating an argument.

"We also don't have the lab facilities to test the DNA on those scalps," she pressed. "The hospital can do simple matches, but Ridges is a border-line serial killer, and for that many murders we have to bring in the state police. We also need to get serious financial forensics going on Nighthorse and the tribal council."

"Technically the B.I.A. has jurisdiction…"

"If I hear the word jurisdiction one more time today, I'm gonna have a shit-fit. The B.I.A. can't prosecute or convict on a case like this. We need bigger guns and you know it."

He still disagreed with his silence.

"Damn it, Walt! I swear to God, if you're planning on going out and doing something stupid, I'm gonna arrest your ass myself!"

"Define stupid," he muttered.

"Oh, I don't know – trying to arrest Jacob Nighthorse without a warrant or due process comes to mind!" She shook her head. "I mean – I get it, I really do. You've gotta go punch your man card or whatever on some vengeance quest. But there's an old Italian Mafia saying – 'Revenge is best served cold.' We _have_ to call in outside agencies to handle this, take our time, and do it right. If we screw this up, Durant and our entire department are gonna end up on the evening news and not in a good way."

Still silent, Walt inhaled heavily through his nose and let it out in a slow, controlled breath.

Eventually, he spoke. "It's French, actually."

Vic stared at him, torn between disbelief and laughter. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Okay," he said, formally surrendering to her threats. "Tomorrow. I'll put a call in to the state police. We'll charge up the phone, see what's on it, and then you or Branch can drive it and the coat over to their lab in Cheyenne – they'll have to do the heavy lifting on identifying Ridges' victims and filing charges for their murders."

"And… if one of them does turn out to be Miller Beck's scalp, it will look better for Henry and the Denver prosecutor's office if someone else handles the DNA work."

Walt suppressed a smile as she hammered home yet another point of her argument. "Okay."

A smile of triumph, a smirk actually, developed on Vic's face and she settled back into her seat. Only a minute or so later, Walt turned into her driveway, the headlights sweeping across the lawn, the house, and her patrol truck, which sat in solitary splendor on the cracked asphalt.

"Sean still out of town? I thought Cady was going to call him yesterday."

Vic paused as she reached for the door handle. "He's liable to be out of town for a while, Walt. Sean – he, umm… he decided to take that transfer."

"I see," Walt temporized, remembering Sean's demand she quit her job. He kept his eyes on the tailgate of the truck in front of him, using its simple lines to keep his mind from going into overdrive. So long as he focused on the chrome emblem fastened to the tailgate, he could fend off the effects of yet another of the emotional whiplashes this day had given him.

"I'm, uh… I'm not going with him," Vic added.

A surge of relief rolled over him, the release of adrenaline followed by a wave of exhaustion and a touch of shame as he realized how much it meant to him that she was staying on.

"Well, uh… long distance relationships are hard. So I hear, anyway," he offered. "You sure about this?"

She sighed. "We had a long distance relationship in the same room, Walt."

"Had?"

"What?"

Walt turned to look at her fully. "You said 'had.'"

"Umm. Yeah. Past tense."

"I'm sorry," seemed to be the right response, but he wasn't. Not really.

"No big deal. People get divorced all the time."

He nodded, searching her features in the dim light. The black eye she sported did nothing to lessen her attractiveness or her air of competent toughness, and the fact that she was injured while defending his daughter merely enhanced his appreciation of the entire package that was Victoria Moretti.

"You all right?"

"I will be," she told him. "It's not like this was a surprise."

"I thought you two were trying to work things out," he ventured, not sure he really wanted to discuss this with her, but was reluctant to just let her get out of the Bronco and leave him.

Vic rolled her eyes. "That trip to Jackson was sort of a last ditch effort… and we both know how well that ended up."

Walt nodded absently, recalling the visceral panic that had gripped him when he'd realized Vic had walked into Chance Gilbert's survivalist compound. It was remarkably akin to the panic he'd felt the night he'd found Vic in his office, handing over an envelope that he'd taken as her resignation. In both cases, he had been faced with the possibility of losing Vic.

Even as he realized the correlation between those two moments, his thoughts turned to the likelihood that he could still lose her. Without a husband to keep her tied to Wyoming, there was every chance she could decide to return to her roots back east and shake the dust from her feet, never to return.

"What are your plans?" he found himself asking. It wasn't what he wanted to say, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to voice his true thoughts – that he wanted her to stay, not just in Wyoming but here, in Durant, as his deputy. But it wasn't his place to ask her to stay, even as her boss. The thought of her leaving felt like yet another part of his life was shaking loose, without any way for him to keep it together.

"I'm gonna find something in my freezer to nuke for dinner then crash for a few hours," Vic answered, her voice blithe and irreverent.

"Wasn't what I meant," he told her, amused despite himself.

She grinned, wincing momentarily when the butterfly bandage pulled at her lower lip.

"Yeah, well, too bad. I'm pooped, and mostly I'm just hoping my boss doesn't go ahead and decide to be a dumbass before I can get to work in the morning. I'll worry about straightening out my personal life after we close this case."

"Sounds like good advice," he allowed. "We both get some rest, then start up again in the morning."

"Deal," she told him, then opened the door. "Because I wasn't kidding about arresting your ass."


	19. Chapter 19

**Title: NOT EXACTLY BFF's**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13 for language (c'mon, it's Vic!)**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire. Takes place after 'Harvest' but veers off before 'Counting Coup.'**

**Author's note: #LongLiveLongmire!**

~Chapter 19~

Walt had forced himself to take his time getting ready for work this morning, making coffee and eating a modest breakfast, all the while resisting the temptation to drive past Vic Moretti's house and roust her out of bed at the crack of dawn. All that self-restraint was rendered moot, however, when her truck pulled in next to his before he'd even got the front door of the station open.

"Thought you were going shopping this morning," he commented, waiting for her.

Vic held out a tangle of white wire, one end a flat spade of plastic. "Didn't need to. Found an old charger in the crap Sean left behind." Flashing a grin, she cut in front of him and through the open door, taking the stairs in swift, competent clomps of her hiking boots. Walt found himself left to bring up the rear, but considering the view of Vic's derriere from this angle, he didn't entirely mind having been tricked into holding the door for her. He was a gentleman, after all.

Inside, he gave a good morning to Ruby before heading to the small anteroom outside his office and the old fireproof filing cabinet they used to store evidence. He came back out in time to see Vic climbing out from under her desk, her ponytail swinging. One end of the white wire disappeared under her desk, presumably to the power strip she shared with Branch. She held out the other end of the charger and waited while he fumbled the phone out of its evidence bag and handed it over. She mated the two together with a tiny click.

"How long will it take to charge it?" he asked.

Vic answered by flipping it open and pushing a button. The little device buzzed, then lit up with the carrier's logo.

Walt's expression turned mildly sheepish, but he combined it with a look that told her she was a smart ass. Doing a bad job of hiding her amusement, Vic forbore any comment but began scrolling through the phone's features.

"Lucky for us, he doesn't use a password," she commented. "The call history only goes back a week or so, but we can get the rest from the phone company. I'm seeing calls here from Jacob Nighthorse, Malachi Strand... huh."

"What?"

Vic glanced up, only now realizing that Walt had leaned in close while she played with the phone. "This one is a Durant number – and it looks familiar."

"That's a number from the courthouse," Walt told her. "They all start with the same exchange prefix and then the numbers are sequential for all the older departments."

"This is one of the last calls Ridges received. It's from two days ago – right before he attacked Cady and me. Walt, Cady was working that morning, but she'd gone over to the courthouse to do some more research on the casino before we met up in the afternoon."

He gave her a long look. "Someone at the courthouse told Ridges what Cady was doing."

"Who, though?" Vic wrinkled her nose. "It's after eight, right?"

Without waiting for an answer, she reached for her own phone and began dialing. "Yeah, who's this? Yeah, look – I got my personal property assessment on my house the other day, and this is totally bullshit. Who do I talk to about getting this fixed? What? Can't you transfer me or something?"

A moment later she pulled the phone sharply away from her ear and looked at it. "Apparently, Ellen Red Elk in the records department can't transfer me."

"Ellen is George Red Elk's daughter, I believe," Walt told her. "You think she knew what Cady was looking into that day?"

"Bet your ass I do," Vic answered. "I think the really important question is whether your wife went over to the courthouse to do the same thing. She never mentioned it, before she died?"

"No," Walt told her. "Martha didn't get out much. The chemo was pretty rough on her."

"I think it's entirely possible that she went to check on the records for the injunction, or the reservation, or something. And if little Miss Snippy-pants told her dad, then he or somebody else got really scared."

"It's a possibility," Walt allowed.

"We can certainly threaten her with a charge of accessory before the fact – maybe get her to tell us what she knows."

Walt removed his hand from the back of Vic's chair, stood up and looked towards the window, his thoughts ranging far from the view of the traffic outside.

"Walt?" Vic called, concerned.

"Why didn't she say anything to me?" he asked softly.

Vic knew he wasn't talking about Ellen. He was thinking of his wife.

"Tell you what?" she responded, playing devil's advocate. "That she had a wild hair about the casino? C'mon, Walt. That casino thing wasn't her reason for living." She winced at her inadvertent choice of words, but upon reflection, it was true.

"I figure she was probably surfing the net one day and found that article about the Florida casino. Maybe she decided to look it up at the courthouse, maybe not. But she had a lot of other things going on. I mean, really? She had cancer – taking chemo treatments. It was probably one of those barely interesting things she might have mentioned on the drive down to Denver. She just never realized how big a deal it was to somebody."

Walt remained silent, still staring out the window.

Exasperation vying with concern, Vic stood and deliberately interrupted his view, invading his personal space as she tried to derail his morose thoughts. "The point is, Walt - your wife's volunteer work wasn't the center of her life. You and Cady – that was the center of her life. Her last thoughts were for you and your daughter. The casino just wasn't that important to her. The two of you were."

Finally, Walt looks at her and nodded, accepting her premise. "Okay. Let's get started on a warrant for this phone's history. We can Judge Mayhew to sign it this morning. Then you need to take it and that coat down to Cheyenne."

"Did you find an evidence bag big enough for it?"

"Nope. Stole one of Ruby's big bags."

"What big bags?" Vic asked his retreating back. "The only big bags she keeps here are the giant Christmas bags – oh, holy shit!"

Walt returned, holding a bright red paper bag, its shiny surface littered with candy canes and gingerbread men. The top had been stapled shut, and the requisite evidence tag stapled to the crease.

"No way in hell am I walking that into the state police," she stated firmly. "Make Branch do it."

"Make me do what?" asked a different voice, and they both turned to see Branch easing his way into the office. "Isn't it a little early for Christmas shopping?"

The next twenty minutes were spent bringing Branch up to speed on what he'd missed the day before.

"So, Red Elk and Wynema realize that Martha found their loophole was bogus," Branch summed up, sipping absently at a cup of coffee that had gone cold. "I get the feeling they threw Malachi Strand under the bus after the injunction was lifted on the casino project, probably so they didn't have to share any of the money. But without him, they don't have anyone to do their dirty work.

"Yeah, I figure they're late to the party," Vic answered. "They may or may not know exactly what happened, but they're actively helping cover up the truth and confuse the picture. Malachi already had a beef with Walt – he probably enjoyed every minute of it."

Walt turned to Vic. "You think Nighthorse just went along with things, or is he an active participant?"

She shrugged. "Honestly, I think Red Elk and Wynema told Nighthorse that if he wants to keep his contract on the casino job and that honking big slice of the profits, he's got to play along or lose everything. You said he sunk a couple million of his own cash into this, right?"

Branch nodded.

"So they dangle that, and probably membership in the tribe, on his cooperation."

"Now, if we can connect Ridges to Jonas Gaitherson," Walt added, "and somehow prove that he helped set up Henry, we can clear Henry's name and close this case."

"All we need is Ridges," Vic said dryly. "Any idea on how we find him?"

"We put pressure on Nighthorse," Branch answered. "We already have him on making a false statement. That phone proves he's been in contact with Ridges, and Ridges attacking Cady and Vic can make him an accessory."

"Call him," Walt ordered. "I want Ridges, and I want him alive."

To no one's surprise, Jacob Nighthorse responded within a few hours. Ruby transferred the call to Walt's desk without asking any questions.

"Hello, Jacob," Walt answered, his voice smooth and calm. "Do you have something to tell me?"

"Once I give you this information, Sheriff, I expect you to honor your agreement," Jacob replied tersely. "I've cooperated fully, and my lawyer is fully aware of this conversation."

"Oh, don't worry," Walt assured him. "Once you tell me where to find Ridges, I'll drop that charge about making a false statement." He made no mention of the other charges he had in mind for Nighthorse.

"Good. David called me a while ago. He wants to meet with you. There's a small valley, about a mile from the casino building site, just off Horse Creek."

"He wants to meet with me," Walt echoed, his voice tinged with skepticism.

"Yes. David said to tell you that he does not have a gun. He just wants to bring this to an end."

"He's planning on surrendering?"

"No," Nighthorse said succinctly, and hung up.

After repeating the conversation to his deputies, Vic and Branch exchanged dubious glances. "Suicide by cop?" Vic ventured.

"Trap," was Branch's opinion.

"Probably," Walt agreed. He turned towards Branch. "You want to take this one? I know how much you were looking forward to arresting Ridges."

Branch glanced away, but grinned before returning his frank, blue gaze to his boss. "Nope. But I got your back."

Walt nodded, then turned to Vic. "You know how to spot?"

"Well, yeah, in theory – I took a seminar in the academy, but it was like a two hour lecture and that was years ago."

Branch looked at her. "We're both good shots, but I've got more experience hunting."

Their eyes locked with mocking intensity, then Vic held out a fist. Branch matched her, and a three-count later Vic's rock had been wrapped by Branch's paper.

"I'll spot, you shoot," he told her.

With a shrug, Vic headed for Walt's office and the glass-fronted rifle case that held the departments long arms. Branch dug through his desk drawer to find his binoculars.

"Give me ten minutes," Walt tossed over his shoulder as he grabbed his hat and headed down the stairs. Once in the stairwell, he made no effort to disguise the wry twist at the corner of his mouth. Technically, Branch didn't cheat, but anyone who knew Vic at all would have known she'd throw a rock.

A short time later, the Bronco bounced and shuddered over the prairie a half-mile from the county highway. The ancient ruts of horse-drawn wagons still scarred the land in places, but Walt followed the track of a little-used dirt road through the undulating tans and browns, the grass dry and nodding in the wind. Occasional clumps of scrub dotted the landscape, but trees were few and stunted by the weather.

The land rose a bit, and soon they crested the top of a rolling hillock. Walt braked immediately, perched on the edge of a wide, shallow bowl of grassland, and took in the sight of a man in full Dog Soldier regalia standing in the center of the valley.

His skin had been painted white, rendering the bandage under his left arm nearly invisible. A headdress of black feathers cascaded down his naked back. His brilliant crimson breechclout was held to his body by a heavy leather belt, and the tail of the red fabric danced in the wind. A second sash was tied around his waist, but it was so heavy and long that the wind was unable to do more than flirt with the edges.

More troubling, however, was the lance he held in one hand and the large knife he held in the other.

"Here we go," Walt said quietly to Vic, who sat shotgun – although, not literally, since she held a .45-70 Marlin next to her leg. She steadied it against the jouncing while Walt descended into the valley a short distance, then pulled a u-turn to head the nose of the truck back towards the distant highway.

Without a word, they both exited the truck and met at the back, where Walt dropped the tailgate. Making his actions deliberate, he shrugged out of his bulky leather coat and laid it in the corner of the cargo area. Pulling his weapon, he placed it on top of the coat.

"I still don't like this plan," Vic told him in an undertone. She parked one hip on the tailgate and propped the rifle across her knee, not even trying to be subtle as she stared down slope. Ridges recognized the challenge in her stare and began to sing in Cheyenne. His voice came in incomprehensible snippets on the breeze, which also plucked at the blue chambray shirt Walt wore, making it obvious he wasn't wearing any kind of body armor.

From the other corner of the cargo area, Walt picked up a pair of worn leather gloves and a heavy white coil. The coil was clamped under one arm as he pulled on the gloves. "I know," he replied. "Just stick to the plan, and shoot wherever Branch tells you."

Vic huffed, still unhappy, but willing to follow orders. "What is that, anyway?" she asked.

"Twenty-five feet of seven-sixteen nylon core waxed hemp rope. Just bought it at the hardware store," he answered, slinging it through his fingers to find the working end and warm it up. He opened the loop a bit, swinging it to get the feel of the lariat.

"Nice," Branch commented from his prone position in the back of the Bronco. The colorful native blankets covered most of his long body and any movement he made while he got his binoculars up and ready. "You get shot, can I have it?"

"Sure," Walt replied easily. "Don't count on it, though – I got no plans on dying today." He began walking towards the figure in the grass, still working the rope loose in his hands.

Vic stood up again, merely leaning against the tailgate as she scanned the surrounding grassland. Although she knew the new casino was less than a mile away, this valley was so isolated that the only sound that reached her was the swish of grasses as Walt walked towards the lone man standing in the field. Watching him, one knee began to jig with nervous energy as she waited.

"This truck stinks."

"He keeps drunk clowns back there," Vic quipped sourly. "See anything yet?"

"Nope," Branch answered, distracted. "You know, if Ridges does have someone else out here, they're most likely gonna shoot you first."

"No shit," she replied. "And my vest is gonna do jack against a rifle round."

Branch gave her an mmm-hmm of agreement, still searching the scrubby edges of the valley. "Got him," he announced triumphantly a moment later.

Vic ceased fidgeting, but resisted the urge to look around. "Where?"

"'Bout one o'clock – by that smaller clump of sage and about ten yards from that bigger bush."

"Got it," she told him. Pretending to pop her neck, she snuck a better glance and then faced several degrees away from the man who lay in the shadows, waiting to ambush them. "Ten bucks says it's Wynema," she commented.

"You're on. Ten spot on Red Elk," Branch replied.

"What if it's Nighthorse?"

"Then Walt gets the pot."

"You're a hard man to find, David," Walt called out, his tone nearly conversational as he walked towards the man in the center of the valley. "I'd introduce myself, but I think you already know who I am."

Instead of replying, Ridges sang louder and began to dance from one foot to the other, keeping a beat with his song. Now that he was closer, Walt could make out the white of a second bandage wrapped around David's left bicep.

"Looks like Vic got you pretty good there," he commented, still working the stiff rope in his hands. "You shouldn't have underestimated her. She may be a bit short, but she's tougher than she looks."

Swinging the rope, still some twenty-five feet from Ridges, Walt threw out the lasso towards a tuft of grass a short distance in front of him. It fell neatly over the grass, and his lips pursed in grim approval as he reeled it back in.

"Traditions," Walt stated. "You're all about traditions, and history. Sometimes, out here, all folks have to hold onto is their history. Take this lasso, for instance. Traditionally, a rope was more valuable to a working cowboy than any gun."

He threw another lasso, this one coming within a few feet of Ridges and then slithering back towards Walt as he coiled it again.

"I learned to use a rope from working with my dad. See, he was a farrier. He used to take me along to help on the rough jobs, horses that had never been shod or just hated to have their feet messed with. Sometimes we had to catch 'em and be insistent about things."

Walt's casual amble halted a good ten feet from where Ridges stood, still singing. The sheriff carefully sized his loop and gave it a tentative swing. "Now, here's the thing, David. You've done some things that are illegal, and I plan to arrest you for them. In fact, I'm gonna have to insist you surrender yourself."

David Ridges finished the stanza of his song, and drew himself up proudly. With a defiant glare, his right hand raised the lance and stabbed it deep into the earth behind him, impaling the sash tied around his waist. It left him a leash of no more than a few feet, tying him to the ground. Without another word, he transferred his knife to his right hand and gave Walt a beckoning gesture with his left.

Walt rubbed his tongue on his front teeth. "Yep. I figured we were gonna do it the hard way." Whirling his lasso, Walt let the rope fly out towards Ridges' knife.

With a yipping cry of defiance, Ridges dodged, the rope falling past him. Reeling it back in, Walt carefully sized the loop once more and swung it out. This time it caught on Ridge's knife hand, but he shook the rope from his fist before it could close around his wrist. His face split in a fierce grin, which lasted only a half-second.

Having taken advantage of David's distraction, Walt charged two steps in, swinging the lariat in a furious arc – not the lasso end, but the heavy coils in his left hand. The multiple loops beat at Ridges' face and upper arm, scraping off stripes of the white paint and leaving behind parallel welts and scrapes.

Cursing, Ridges twisted to the side and staggered before catching his balance with his back heel. He stabbed out towards Walt, aiming for his chest. The sheriff caught the blade on a backswing, fouling the edge with the nylon and hemp, and following it up with a right roundhouse.

The force of the blow propelled Ridges backwards, his heel tripping in the grass and on the sash that tied him to the ground. Using the momentum to his advantage, Walt pressed forward and continued to beat at him with the lariat until he knocked the knife loose. It went spinning off into the grass, and Walt punched him again and knocked him to the ground.

Hampered by the sash tied around his waist, Ridges tried to roll free. The air was broken by the harsh ripping of the fabric, which sent Ridges into a fury. From his knees he launched an attack, driving his shoulder up into Walt's midsection and knocking him back. The brown O'Farrell hat went spinning off, lost in the sea of dry prairie. Walt grabbed at the man's shoulder, twisting his momentum to the side, but Ridge's grappling sent them both rolling into the grass.

While he was a younger man, Ridges lacked the experience of all-out brawling Walt had developed over the past twenty years. His long arm wrapped around Ridge's neck while Ridges did his best to hammer at Walt's ribs. The tattered end of the sash entangled their limbs as they struggled, while Walt used his greater bulk to keep Ridges from sending them towards his lost knife.

When the opportunity presented itself, Walt did not hesitate. With full knowledge of what he was doing, he dug an elbow into Ridges' wounded side. It might have been underhanded, but he was determined to end this fight before any shooting started.

Ridges hissed in pain, his body flexing like a snake against his larger opponent. The change in balance was all Walt needed to shove his opponent over once more, pinning him to the ground. Ridges could only snarl as Walt pulled back his fist for another, heavier blow to end the fight.

A gunshot rang out, and they both froze. Ridges looked up at the sheriff, feral triumph stealing across his features, just in time to receive the knockout strike.

Breathing heavily, Walt glanced around in time to see a middle-aged man some twenty yards away, coughing and cursing as he backpedalled from matted dent in the grasses. A hunting rifle lay on the ground before him, but more interesting was the fresh divot of torn earth only inches in front of where he'd been lying.

When he looked in the other direction, Walt saw Vic standing tall, with the Marlin held to her shoulder. Her expressionless face was half obscured by the black scope that gleamed in the sunlight. Branch was already out of the truck and running towards the man, his own weapon held at the ready.

Rolling the semi-conscious David Ridges over, Walt pulled out his handcuffs and cuffed the white-painted wrists behind the man's back. The lance took some muscle to remove from the ground. As it came up, it released the remaining scrap of fabric, which rolled away in the gusty breeze, taking with it the remains of Ridges' attempted martyrdom.

By the time Walt had the man on his feet, Branch had done the same with the sniper and was hustling him over to the Bronco despite his attempts to break free. From the far side of the valley, Chief Mathias Little Fox skidded down the slight incline to meet Branch and gave him a hand controlling the resisting sniper. When the man realized who had taken hold of his other arm, he abruptly ceased flailing about, his tightly bunched arm slackening in Mathias' hold. The man's short black hair was laced with silver, and a heavy silver bolo tie at the throat of his shirt looked familiar.

"Howard Wynema," Mathias announced as he and Branch pulled the older man towards the back seat of the Bronco. "You pull the short straw?"

The middle-aged man scowled, but said nothing.

"Maybe he threw scissors," Branch joked. "Guess I owe Vic ten bucks."

Author's note – Purely for research's sake I went my local tack store/feed store/you name it store and played with their lariats. When I slapped them against my leg and my hand to see how effective it would be, I gotta tell you those suckers HURT!


End file.
